Marcelle Deschênes

Petits Big Bangs is a retrospective of mixed, multimedia and acousmatic music by Marcelle Deschênes, spanning 1976 to 2002. The six works were mastered by Dominique Bassal in 2005 and issued in 96 kHz, 24-bit stereo. Several began life as music for installations and stage shows, and the disc received the Prix Opus 2006-07 for record of the year.

Big Bang II (1987, remixed in 1995 by Louis Dufort) and the short Big Bang III (1992) were written for automated installations of holograms, sculpture and light by Georges Dyens, shown in the exhibit Images du futur in Montréal. Lux (1985) accompanied Renée Bourassa's multimedia show of the same name and quotes Alain Thibault along with texts by Shaw, Rutherford, Oppenheimer and Kant. Indigo and Le bruit des ailes grew out of music for a fashion show event of the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne and became the first two parts of Griffes, a cycle inspired by Clarissa Pinkola Estés and Marie-Louise von Franz on the “wild woman” archetype. The second draws on recordings of the 1998 Québec ice storm, erupting volcanoes and nuclear tests.

The oldest piece, Moll, opéra lilliput pour six roches molles (1976), is a suite of 17 miniatures for two clarinets, three trombones, three percussion sets, toys and tape, born from a children's music teaching project at Université Laval and from long hours spent looking at grey pebbles on the Bas-Saint-Laurent beaches. Commissioned by the SMCQ, it won first prize for mixed works at Bourges in 1978 and a Euphonie d'or in 1992. It is heard in a 1978 recording with Pierre Langevin, Réjean Marois, René Joly, Raynald Lévesque, Robert Pelletier and Robert Leroux.

Born in Price, Québec, in 1939, Deschênes studied composition with Jean Papineau-Couture and Serge Garant in Montréal, then worked at the GRM with Pierre Schaeffer, François Bayle and Guy Reibel. From 1980 to 1997 she taught at the Université de Montréal, where she created its electroacoustic composition programme.

DVD-Audio in OGplus, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 0681, 2006.