Robert Normandeau

Palimpsestes brings together five works by Robert Normandeau composed between 2005 and 2011, most of them for multichannel diffusion, from 16 to 38 channels, here in stereo. Several revisit earlier material, as the title suggests: a palimpsest is a parchment scraped clean and written over. The album won the Prix Opus for album of the year in 2011-12.

Palimpseste, commissioned by the ZKM in Karlsruhe, closes the Onomatopoeias cycle begun in 1991 with a homage to old age, its five sections laid over the time structure of the earlier pieces. It uses only voices, recorded in Germany and Québec, including Andrée Lachapelle and Christiane Pasquier. Murmures returns twenty years later to the Place de Ransbeck in Ohain, where Normandeau composed Rumeurs in 1987 at the invitation of Annette Vande Gorne, now with sounds played by Foley artist Marie-Jeanne Wyckmans. Jeu de langues, commissioned by Miso Music Portugal, strips recordings of flutes, baritone saxophone and recorders of pitch, keeping only breath and key noise; it is the composer’s contribution to erotic music and won the Production Prize at the Giga-Hertz-Preis 2010.

Anadliad, Welsh for breath, was written in Bangor for 38 channels with a Scottish bagpipe and the Welsh pibgorn, in memory of Ann Lloyd-Jones. Palindrome, commissioned by the IMEB in Bourges, sounds the same in both directions, from the sounds themselves to the spatialization of its 24 tracks, using accordion, voices and the organ and bells of Bourges cathedral.

Born in Quebec City in 1955, Normandeau completed the first DMus in electroacoustic composition at the Université de Montréal in 1992 and has taught there since 1999. He leads the GRIS research group on spatialization and won the Golden Nica at Ars Electronica in 1996.

CD in OGpak, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 12116, 2012.