West Coast String Summit 2023: Quatuor d’Occasion
West Coast String Summit 2023: Quatuor d’Occasion
March 11, 2023
ANNEX
Part of West Coast String Summit, which took place March 9-11, 2023 at The Roundhouse, ANNEX and 8 EAST, presented by Vancouver New Music, Vancouver Improvised Arts Society, NOW Society in partnership with the Roundhouse
Malcolm Goldstein – violin
Jean René – viola
Émilie Girard-Charest – cello
Nicolas Caloia – contrabass
Quatuor d’occasion performs Because a circle is not enough, music for bowed string instruments (2018-19), a program of works composed by Malcolm Goldstein in 2018-19. Presented as series of structured improvisations, these pieces are intended as a process of discovery, emerging in real time shaped by the structure and directives of each individual composition, and creative choices of the musicians.
The Quatuor d’occasion was formed in 2011 on the initiative of Malcolm Goldstein. Since then they have performed in most of Montreal’s experimental and improvised music venues. Meeting regularly for several years, the quartet’s musicians have developed a common discourse and created their own group sound.
Program:
Because a circle is not enough : an étude to focus the body/breath/gesture in relation to performed sound. Performed as a duo and by the entire ensemble.
reflections on a cavatina / adagio : phrases of timbrally varied, single sustained tones quietly expanded from a tonal centre.
Songs and interludes : a shifting of balance between tone and timbre phrases and events as rest points.haiku sounding : songs with a structure analogous to the Japanese haiku form, transformed through the process of linkage to create a series of songs. To be realized by the full quartet and as a duet.
on and on and always slowly nowhere : Endless nuances within a single sound and gesture are revealed within a focused structure of long sustained bowings.
extraordinarily variable, this source : a flow of various fast staccato and spiccato articulations with modification of timbre and articulation, creating endless nuances within an on-going sound texture.
Statement and Responses : a structure that begins with several “statements” of brief timbre phrases analogous to spoken language, which then opens to “responses” of short phrases of repeated rhythmic patterns. This piece can also be realized as a dialogue between two musicians.
for the left hand alone : free-flowing and patterned rhythms performed with left hand pizzicato.
Storytelling : music that comes from the musicians’ experience(s) in life, recalled and realized in sound as episodes of sonic enactment.
décollage / collage : a melodic line that is endlessly transformed by omitting and replacing elements.
boundless the source, overflowing in song : the quartet musicians establish a texture derived from the performance activities explored in preceding pieces, from which each musician emerges with their own personal improvised song.
Videography: Mingtao Kong
Audio recording: Dan Kibke
Editing: Heather McDermid
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