Jean-Francois Laporte – 17th October 2014

Join us in the Atrium of Alison House for a short performance by Candian Sound Artist and Composer Jean-François Laporte.

17th October 2014
Doors 8pm, tickets free
Alison House, 12 Nicolson Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9DF
Map to venue: www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Alison+House/@55.9461,-3.186437,17z/

Some of you may remember his Late Lab performance at Edinburgh’s Science Festival in April 2014. He’s back in Edinburgh running a workshop with Sound Design and Digital Composition students. He’ll perform the following set:

jf-laporte

Programme notes:

1-Electro-Prana (5 min)

Électro-prana is composed exclusively of wind recordings that were
done during the ice storm that hit Montreal in January 1998. The region was trapped under ice for weeks, and time stopped.
But as still as the frozen cityscape was, a particularly organic movement still dwelled: the sound of wind, through the streets to the trees, beautifully undrowned by the urban noise.

Électro-Prana is constructed from many indoor recordings of the sound of the winter wind: whistling through doors and windowpanes, of which the control of their aperture
allowed a certain control over the intensity and timbre of the sound. Using this method, the sound transformations that animate the piece were all done live while recording: no processing or effects were used on the original recordings, only a montage and mixing of the sounds was done afterwards.

This piece is dedicated to composer Marcelle Deschênes. It was first played along with a score for traditional instruments in Prana (which won first prize at the
23nd Luigi Russolo Contemporary Music Contest, Italy ) before being developed in this standalone format.

2-boule qui roule (8 min)

Boule qui roule… puts the listener at the heart of a continuous sonic evolutive process, designating him as witness to the becoming of the piece. This foreseeable
character, born from the natural character of the transformations, is colored by the opposition of the ranges and directions of the sound movements which, stretched over very long sequences, constantly give a feeling of stability.

This piece was composed solely using a shelving filter with the Cecilia software running on a Silicon Graphic computer. A single 10-minutes recording of a machine sound was
fed through the filter a couple hundred times, following the subtle adjustments carefully made to the filter by the composer at each passage.

Premiere: February 8th 1997, Kingston Electroacoustic Music Symposium
(Ontario, Canada).
The piece won a Prize at the 1997 Socan Contest (Canada).

Scratch & feeds (20 min)

(no notes)

Mantra (1997 – 26 min)

“Ritualistic sound formula, given by the master to his apprentice in Hinduism and Buddhism, the recitation of which having the power of putting to action its corresponding spiritual influence. It allows to enter the realm of vibrations that constitute the universe, according to Hindu cosmology, and to participate in the direction of their energy. The symbol here has the force of a communion with the cosmos.”
Dictionary of symbols, J.Chevalier & A.Gheerbrant

Living in a post-industrial era, we are surrounded and submerged daily
by this soundscape filled with omnipresent sounds, the mantras. The mantra is a sound with a relatively long duration, either cyclic or periodic, and with an almost unperceivable
progression — like, for example, all those machine sounds that are a big part of our daily environment (refrigerator, water cooler, air conditioner, ventilation system, car traffic, etc.). Even if we’re not always consciously aware of its presence, the Mantra still bear an influence on our energy.

It’s in that state of mind that Mantra was born, a unique 26 minutes sound recording of the cooling compressor for a skating rink. Every timbral transformation was done
live during the recording, no processing whatsoever was done in the studio afterwards. In fact, the timbral shifts were done by manipulating the sound source directly. For example, PVC tubes were used for filtering the high frequencies, metal covers were used to amplify or color certain sounds, etc. Sound effects normally done in the studio were all done live during the recording using physical means.

Jean-François Laporte – biography

As a Canadian artist, Jean-François Laporte has been an active member
of the contemporary art’s scene since the mid-1990’s. He pursues a
hybrid approach integrating visual arts and sound exploration. Taking
an intuitive approach to create music, Laporte learns art through
concrete experimentation on matter. His unique artistic vision relies
on an active listening of each sound, object, material, etc. Thus his
art is the result of working in complicity with raw material ,
proposing constructions born of each material he explores. His work is
characterized by a large diversity of sound sources, aesthetic quality
concerns, as well as an undeniable peculiarity.

Since the year he began to be involved in arts, in 1993 (at 25 years
old), Jean-François has written some 70 works that have been performed
in Montreal, across Canada, Europe and all around the world. A number
of his pieces have been commissioned by Montreal-based and
international ensembles and organizations, and he has won several
awards and grants from such institutions as the Canada Council and the
Québec Council for the Arts. The composer has also won several awards
including, in 2002, “Composer Of The Year,”  “Creation Of The Year,”
(for his work Tribal, for orchestra of invented instruments) and
“Discovery Of The Year” as part of the Opus awards (from the Conseil
québécois de la musique), in 2003, his work Prana received first prize
in the mixed music category of the 23rd International Luigi Russolo
electroacoustic music competition (Italy) and, in 2004, the first
prize in electroacoustic music for the international competition
Citta’ di Udine’ with his work Dans le ventre du dragon. In 2006
Laporte won agains the award’s “Creation Of The Year”, (for his work
Plenitude of emptinesse, for Quasar sax quartet and invented
instruments). Recently, Productions Totem Contemporain (he his the
General and Artistic director) receive the Music Award during the
Grand prix du Conseil des Arts de Montréal (years 2006).

For the past fifteen years, along with his activities as a composer,
Jean-François has been developing and making new musical instruments
(Tu-Yo, Bowl, FlyingCan, Sax-trunk, vibrating membranes and Siren
Organ,) which he integrates in his works and, since 2002, to visual &
sound installations using computerized and robotized controls. These
inventions have brought the composer to create several commissioned
works such as from the French CBC (L’éveil d’un Titan for the
Silophone project designed by The User,) from Code d’Accès (Tribal),
from IRCAM in Paris (Vortex) and from Quasar/SMCQ (Plenitude of
emptinesse , opening concert for the festival Montréal Nouvelle
Musique 2005), with invented instruments; from Fonderie Darling
(Khôra) and Escales Improbables (Tremblement de mer) with sound
installations. Last may 2007, Laporte exposed for 2 mounth his new
visual & sound installation call Kyokkoufu (for Robotize FlyingCan) in
the Contemporary Arts Museum of Santiago de Compostella (CGAC –
Spain). Laporte work actually on Psukhô, a new Visual & Sound
installation who will be create in october 2009.

Increasingly, these inventions are drawing attention in the theatrical
and visual arts circles. Not only have they been the centerpieces of
numerous tours (Khôra was presented around 25 times in several
countries including Canada, U.S.A., France, Belgium, Germany, Iseland,
Lithuania, Sueden, Holland, Italy and Japan) they have opened up new
opportunities in the areas of contemporary music and dance. In 2002,
choreographer Susan Buirge, supported by the Abbey of Royaumont,
commissioned a 40-minute electroacoustic work featuring invented
instruments, L’œil de la forêt, and the Japanese choreographer Heidi
S. Durning has called upon him to compose the music of several of her
projects, including Sound Dance, Spiral Wind, Kimono Series and Ruby.)
At present, he just finish creating Le Tératome with the France
choreographer Frederic Tavernini. He work now on a new project with
the France choreographer Barbara Sarreau. Moreover, a great number of
composers have taken to integrate his inventions to their works,
notably the Sweden Jesper Nordin for a commission from the Sveriges
Radios Symfoniorkester (Residues) and the Briton Johnathan Harvey for
a commission from dance companyMa-To-Ma.

Since 2000, while dedicating a lot of energy to invented new musical
instruments, visual & sound installations, the composer is still very
active in the creation of works for traditional instruments but very
often used in a non-traditional manner; for example, works such as À
l’Ombre d’un murmure, (Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal), le Chant de
l’inaudible (QuasarSaxophone quartet) Moments (Buzzini string
Quartet), Prana, (Nouvel Ensemble Moderne), and
Procession(commissioned by the Royaumont Abbey in France, for its
Roman organ.) Tow years ago he finished composing a 25-minute piece
call Psukhô, for the Radio-France Symphonic Orchestra mixed with the
new installation call Psukhô (created in Dijon the 7 november 2009).
He also finish Soul screams, a new electric string quartet piece for
ensemble Repertorio Zero who was  performed at the Venise Bienal.
Recently he finish composed a 60-minute piece for Ensemble
Transmission, which was created in Montreal the 23 mai 2013. In 2009,
Laporte was named “Facteur d’Instrument de musique de l’année” by the
CQM (Conseil Québécois de la Musique), thus receiving his fifth “prix
Opus”. This prize aims at the recognition of the quality of Laporte’s
work and the importance of the invention of his own musical
instruments. In 2010 Laporte was in Tokyo for an artistic residences
of 6 mounth (Studio du Québec in Tokyo).

The musical work’s of Jean-François Laporte are edited on Babel Scores
Edition, (contemporary Music online).