MODERN RUIN Opens in Montreal This Month

Ottawa-born singer and composer Kyrie Kristmanson discovered the Trobairitz (women troubadours) of the 12th and 13th centuries while studying at La Sorbonne. While traveling off the beaten path in France, she discovered the practically disintegrated ruins of Medieval forts where there these educated and sophisticated women would have written their mostly lost works. Works that constitute the first autonomous artistic output made by women in the West.

The songs on Modern Ruin emerged from artistic production residencies in the abbeys of Noirlac and Fontevraud, two locations heavily imbued with history and myth. The result is a unique musical creation thaht kaleidoscopically references Joni Mitchell, Dead Can Dance, the Kronos Quartet, Malicorne, and Cat Power. Modern Ruin reveals an unexpected continuity between the freedom of these few women in the Middle Ages and artists working now, evoking an almost supenatural connection between women of the 12th and 21st centuries.

Created and performed by: Kyrie Kristmanson Warhol Dervish Quartet: Violins : John Corban, Emily Redhead. Viola: Pemi Paull. Cello: Jean-Christophe Lizotte. A Kyrie Kristmanson/Warhol Dervish Quartet production. Presented by La Chapelle Scènes Contemporaines

La Chapelle would like to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, the Conseil des Arts du Canada, the Ministère du Patrimoine canadien, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, the Ministère de l'Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale and the City of Montreal.