Gilles Gobeil, Suzanne Binet-Audet

Trilogie d’Ondes gathers the three works Gilles Gobeil wrote for ondes Martenot and fixed medium between 1988 and 2002, all performed by Suzanne Binet-Audet. The three pieces were recorded in Boucherville in December 2004 and January 2005 and mixed by composer and performer together. Two themes run through the cycle: a “wrench theme” built on a long rising glissando, and a “soul theme” made of four neighbouring, out-of-tune notes.

Voix blanche (1988, 89), in memory of Serge Garant, was commissioned by Binet-Audet and premiered at the Université de Montréal in a Radio-Canada concert for the 60th anniversary of the ondes Martenot. It won 2nd prizes at Bourges and at the Luigi Russolo competition in 1989. In Là où vont les nuages… (1990-91), dedicated to her, the ondes are linked to a MIDI converter so that the player also triggers synthesizer, sampler and processing. La perle et l’oubli (1999-2002) is a reading of the second-century Gnostic Hymn of the Pearl, attributed to Bardesanes, in twelve sequences where the ondes play the soul on its journey of incarnation. It premiered in Köln in 2002 at a WDR3 concert.

Born in Sorel-Tracy, Québec, in 1954, Gobeil studied composition at the Université de Montréal with Serge Garant and was introduced to electroacoustic music by Marcelle Deschênes and Francis Dhomont. His work belongs to the “cinéma pour l’oreille”. Binet-Audet, born in Montréal in 1942, studied the ondes with their inventor Maurice Martenot in Paris and with Jeanne Loriod, and has played with the Ensemble d’ondes de Montréal since 1976. The album won the Prix Opus for disc of the year 2004-05.

DVD-Audio in OGplus, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 0576, 2005.