Name: NME Presents: Le Désert Mauve — A New Experimental Opera by Symon Henry.
Start: 2023-03-26T14:30:00-06:00
End: 2023-03-26T16:30:00-06:00
Location: The Orange Hub

NME Presents: Le Désert Mauve — A New Experimental Opera by Symon Henry.

The Society for New Music in Edmontonis proud to be this region’s premier organization for the promotion and presentation of contemporary music and sound-related arts. Now in its fourth decade, NME is committed to the goal of seeking out and bringing to its audiences the widest possible spectrum of musical and sonic art practices.www.newmusicedmonton.ca

New Music Edmonton

Le Désert Mauve – a new experimental opera by Symon Henry based on the iconic Québécois novel by Nicole Brossard.

The Orange Hub

“The desert is indescribable. Reality rushes into it, rapid light. The gaze melts. Yet this morning. Very young, I was already crying over humanity. With every new year I could see it dissolving in hope and in violence. (..) Then would come the pink, the rust and the grey among the stones, the mauve and the light of dawn.”—Nicole Brossard, “Mauve Desert” (1987)FeaturingSymon Henry, conductor and artistic directorLine Nault, stage director and choreographerVirginie Mongeau (Mélanie 1), vocal artist and electronics; Elizabeth Lima (Narrator), vocal artist and electronics; Talia Fuchs (Mélanie 2), vocal artist.Rémy Bélanger de Beauport, cello; Benoît Fortier, horn; Émilie Mouchous, electroacoustic artist.Alexandre Burton, digital luthierMélanie, a teenager on a quest for the absolute, criss-crosses the Arizona desert to exorcise fear and reality, hoping to escape the sluggish daily life of her mother’s motel near Tucson. Her meeting with the excessive Angela Parkins will multiply the acts of revolt and pure joy. In the intervals of the narration, there is the threatening presence of “the long man” as the history of the world and science. Such is the story discovered by the translator Maude Laure, a story that captivates her and that she decides to translate after being imbued with the characters, having imagined their dialogues and remakes the landscapes of the disturbing beauty of the desert. As the novel unfolds, the reader first discovers Laure Angstelle’s “Mauve Desert,” followed by Maude Laures’s reflections on its translation, and finally her translation of the story, entitled “Mauve Horizon.”Following in Maude Laure’s footsteps, Mauve Desert – Mauve The Horizon conveys to the audience a translation of this novel—iconic to the Lesbian and Queer community, and also a landmark in Québécois literature—into my visual soundworld. In this version of “Mauve Desert,” I composed the foundations of an opera project to come by bringing into resonance the poetic imaginations of Nicole Brossard, of the fictional author of the first story—Laure Angstelle—, of the translator Maude Laures and my own sound and visual world, which is at once lyrical, intimate and noisy. I am therefore seeking, in turn, to immerse myself in the characters and to imagine the iridescent harmonic textures of my sound environment, with complex colours, constantly modulating between consonance and rich roughness like the colours of the desert, always similar, always different in the infinite complexity of details.« Le désert est indescriptible. La réalité s’y engouffre, lumière rapide. Le regard fond. Pourtant ce matin. Très jeune, je pleurais déjà sur l’humanité. À chaque nouvel an, je la voyais se dissoudre dans ll’espoir et la violence. (…)je filais la lumière dans ses mauves et petites lignes qui comme des veines dessinaient un grand arbre de vie dans mon regard. »― Nicole Brossard, Le Désert Mauve (1987)Mélanie, une adolescente en quête d’absolu, sillonne le désert de l’Arizona pour exorciser la peur et la réalité, espérant échapper au quotidien lent du motel que dirige sa mère, près de Tucson. Sa rencontre avec l’excessive Angela Parkins multipliera les actes de révolte et de pure joie. Dans les intervalles de la narration, se dresse la présence menaçante de « l’homme long » comme l’histoire du monde et de la science. Tel est le récit que découvre la traductrice Maude Laures, récit qui l’envoûte et qu’elle décide de traduire après s’être imprégnée des personnages, avoir imaginé leurs dialogues et refait les paysages de l’inquiétante beauté du désert.Suivant les traces de Maude Laures, c’est à une traduction vers le sonore — par l’entremise des partitions musicales graphiques que je crée — que j’aspire à convier les spectateur×rices de ce projet. Dans Désert mauve — un livre à traduire, j’ai composé les bases d’un projet d’opéra en faisant entrer en résonance l’imaginaire poétique de Nicole Brossard, celui de l’auteure fictive du premier récit — Laure Angstelle —, celui de la traductrice Maude Laures et mon propre univers sonore. J’ai donc cherché, à mon tour, à m’imprégner des personnages et à imaginer les textures harmoniques irisées de leur environnement sonore, aux couleurs complexes, modulant constamment entre consonance et riche rugosité à l’image des couleurs du désert, toujours semblables, toujours différentes dans l’infinie complexité des détails.

NME Presents: Le Désert Mauve — A New Experimental Opera by Symon Henry.

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