BROADWAY BOOGIE-WOOGIE to Celebrate SMCQ's 50th Anniversary

The Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) starts off 50th year with a bang, in a unique event - Broadway Boogie-Woogie - featuring brass instruments dancing and voices swirling, celebrating culture in all its forms!

This free major concert, taking place on Friday, September 30th at salle Pierre-Mercure revisits symbolic works from the SMCQ repertoire. The program highlights the wealth of a wild rhythmic composing (Andriessen, Nancarrow) while inviting you to discover our founding composers (Papineau-Couture, Pierre Mercure).

SMCQ Artistic Director Walter Boudreau explains: "The programming of our opening concert highlights the SMCQ's DNA , even more specifically for its 50th anniversary: works with a major deployment and decompartmentalization of musical styles and genres, combined in a festive and varied program, with emphasis on our own musical history."

This concert crosses influences, as evidenced by Andriessen's masterpiece De Materie which projects its jazzy tones and boogie-woogie tempo, inspired by the lines of Mondrian 's painting Broadway Boogie-Woogie. Energetic tones which will find their response in the omnipresent tempo of Conlon Nancarrow's works.

Another eagerly anticipated moment: the performance of Pierre Mercure's Tétrachromie, set aside and now reconstituted for this occasion more than 50 years after its creation. Jean Papineau-Couture's Fantasque, performed by soloist Caroline Milot, completes the program. The cellist comments: "this piece is rife with technical difficulties, but it's a work marked with a captivating lyric. A sheer joy to play. Additionally this year marks the composer's hundredth birthday."

Pre-concert participatory activity (6 pm): material and the style at the tips of your fingers!
A playful and creative workshop allows you to explore the musical work before the performance. The animator will assist you in discovering De Materie (Louis Andriessen) suggesting that the sounds be interpreted using the provided boomwhackers (percussive sound tubes.) The activity will also plunge you into the various sound textures of the work to explore how the renowned composer integrates several musical styles in his composition, from the classic standard to the boogie-woogie.

Program:

Conlon Nancarrow, Piece No. 2 for Small Orchestra (1986)
Jean Papineau-Couture, Fantasque (1995)
Pierre Mercure, Tétrachromie (1963)
Louis Andriessen, De Materie (3e mouvement: De Stijl) (1984-85)

Musicians:

Ensemble de la SMCQ
Walter Boudreau, conductor
Caroline Milot, cello

Reminder:

Friday, September 30, 2016, at 7 pm
Concert preceded by a participatory activity (6 pm)
Salle Pierre-Mercure - Centre Pierre-Péladeau
300, boulevard de Maisonneuve Est
Métro Berri-UQAM
514 987-6919 # 2 - www.smcq.qc.ca
Free

An SMCQ production within the framework of the Journées de la culture

The SMCQ has been moving in step with the lively rhythms of new music for almost fifty years. With its regular concert season, its Homage Series, an international festival, and Youth Activities, the society has served both as a platform for today's composers and as a window on creative works for everyone. Managed by composers for composers, the SMCQ has been led by three different artistic directors to date: composers Serge Garant (1966-89), Gilles Tremblay (1986).

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