I am especially excited about presenting the music of Jean Derome on this concert. Jean is one of Canada’s most active and eclectic voices, and he’s a great guy! The Province of Quebec has declared 2015 L’annee Jean Derome in celebration of his 60th birthday, so it’s appropriate he be celebrated in Halifax as well! Jean has performed and had his music played here several times: Twice on the suddenlyLISTEN series: In Chants d’Oiseaux in 2010 (with Norm Adams and Daniel Heikalo) and in Music Actuelle > Montreal et Halifax (along with students from Dalhousie University, Geordie Haley, and Joane Hetu). He has also been presented by Upstream and at the Atlantic and Halifax Jazz Festivals on several occasions.
In fact, Jean is really one of the parents of creative music in Canada. Along with a group of 1970’s musical searchers co-founded the record label Ambiences Magnetiques and along the way, the great Montreal creative music scene. Jean has led large musique actuelle projects, (Canot-camping, Résistances), worked in improvisation (as a soloist and with collaborators such as Joane Hétu, Lori Freedman, Pierre Tanguay, and Malcolm Goldstein) led jazz bands (Évidence and the Trio Derome Guilbeault Tanguay; and his powerful ensemble Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms), collaborations and compositions for musicians, film, theatre and dance have established Jean as a major creative force over the last 40 years!
Jean’s compositions range from through-composed to very free, and include lots of game pieces, two of which we’ll play on November 17th: Pulsations, a study in multiple pulses, and Spectacles a piece consisting of 16 different instructions based on different elements common to time based arts: flow, space, speed, and tone.
We are so happy to be presenting Jean’s music in this important year!
Nov 11, 2015 at 14:45