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PORTRAITS ; PROLOGUE
Julien Bilodeau
 “Portraits” is the opening installment of a vocal cycle. Each of
the pieces that form, and will form, this cycle is an expression
of some form of encounter based on friendship. In technical
terms, the basic compositional principle of the whole cycle is
simple: the musical material that constitutes the sequence of
pitches in each piece is derived from the name of the person
evoked through French, English, German and Indian orthographies
for defining notes of the scale. We can therefore derive the
notes that correspond to letters of the alphabet. The texts set
to music are, for their part, freely chosen according to the
association they bear with an idea, a person or a context that
the composer associates with the idea of friendship.
“Prologue,” which opens the cycle, is a general picture inspired
by a quotation from the Romanian author Panaït Istrati, a great
friend of mankind: “Where we begin to be human beings and
artists is when we experience the suffering of all men, when we
express this in our own ways and fight the evil we cause by our
egoism. Art is war against our imperfections.” (Panaït Istrati,
Nerrantsoula, Part 3). The work was commissioned by the Montreal
International Musical Competition, Voice 2007. I thank the
organizers of this competition for their confidence, and for
their role in supporting the performance of contemporary music.
Biographical notes
Composer Julien Bilodeau was born in
Quebec City in 1974. After several years spent learning
the piano, guitar and philosophy, he was accepted into
the Montreal Conservatoire where he studied analysis and
composition with Serge Provost. Upon completion of his
work there in 2003 he received two prizes with high
distinction by unanimous consent of the jury. That same
year, composer and theoretician Karlheinz Stockhausen
invited him to come to Paris for more extensive research
into the relationship between concepts of time and
musical form. With a grant from the Fonds québécois pour
la recherche sur la société et culture, Julien Bilodeau
continued his musical training at the Institut de
Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM) as
well as at the Centre de Création Musicale Iannis
Xenakis (CCMIX). These studies solidified his interest
in the integration of new technology and music, and of
the interaction between performer, audio digital
interface and performing space.
While carrying out his research, Bilodeau fulfilled
numerous commissions including from the Nouvel Ensemble
Moderne (À Coups), the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand
Montréal (ÉventAils) on the occasion of its 25th
anniversary, the Parisian ensemble L’Itinéraire
(KrOniKs_04, a tribute to the composer Fausto Romitelli),
and the Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne
(Myriades), which has also commissioned a work to mark
the 400th anniversary of Quebec City, Bilodeau’s natal
city, in 2008.
In his effort to redefine certain aspects of the
classical concert, Julien Bilodeau is currently working
with physicist Claudine Allen and architect Yann Rocher
to create a mobile multimedia performing space in which
the performance of music and new technologies are
integrated. Since 2004 he has received financial aid
from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec and
from the Canada Council for the Arts. The latter
conferred on him in 2006 the Robert Fleming Prize, given
to composers in the early stages of their careers. |
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