Ode au métal
December 18th, 2021, 8:00pm – $20
Centre d’Expérimentation Musicale – 37 Rhainds, Chicoutimi-Nord
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Quasar saxophone quartet will be in a professional development residency at the Centre d’Expérimentation Musicale (CEM) in the month of December to present the concert Ode au métal.

Ode to metal, for four saxophones; large, treated sheets of metal, and real-time sound processing, by Sonia Paço-Rocchia, was awarded two Opus Prizes in 2019: Premiere of the year and Concert of the year in contemporary music and electroacoustics. This event will be the opportunity for Quasar to revisit this monumental work, in a new context and with a team of experienced designers.

In addition to the public concert on December 18th, the performance will be recorded and is to be the first in a triptych of art films devoted to creations by Canadian composers.

Ode to Metal forges musical theatre with performative sound installation. It is an immersive work that highlights the material at hand, both visually and sonically, by exploring it, exploiting it with the human at its core, and with breath, in the face of the solidity and strength of metal.

This work inhabits the space with a certain muscularity. From the breath of the musicians, the metal resonates and vibrates out and around the audience members, who finds themselves in the heart of a tug of war with steel. On stage, the musicians travel about a huge suspended aluminum ribbon. Cutouts of blue steel, galvanized steel and patinated steel buckles resound against the alloys of the saxophones,  blending into a singular metallic installation with a powerful and surprising sound.

Ode au métal will be presented on one night only, December 18th at 8:00 pm at the Centre d’Expérimentation Musicale: 37 Rhainds, Chicoutimi-Nord.

The concert Ode au métal, a project by:

Quasar saxophone quartet | Sonia Paço-Rocchia, composition | Maxime Genois, staging | Marianne Lonergan, scenography | Flavie Lemée, lighting design | Guillaume Barrette, sound system and recording | Xavier Madore – La Conserve Média, video recording | Simon Roberge, production, documentary | Centre d’Expérimentation Musicale, partners and diffusion