We were masks, miracles,
tangled up in excitement,
a long-awaited mystery,
appearances, disappearances,
fake-sounding habits.

The transdisciplinary performance Je suis calme et enragé·e (I am calm and enraged) opens with these words by Roxane Desjardins. Ambitious as it is fragile, the project presents six sound paintings — visual music scores composed by Nour Symon — for six poems exploring “positions of distress and malaise in response to History, the scale of humanity and looming ecological disasters,” in the words of Desjardins.

The scores are performed by four vocalists (Zéa Beaulieu-April, Gabriel Dharmoo, Laura Doyle Péan, and Vincent Ranallo). They intone the music in chorus, intimately recite the text and weave counterpoints that explore the sound of today’s music. The vocalists are accompanied by two instrumental soloists (Émilie Mouchous, synthesizers, and Benjamin Tremblay-Carpentier, harmonicas and electronics) as well as by six instrumentalists from Ensemble SuperMusique. The instrumentalists are at once echos of their individuality and participants in the movement of daily crowds.

Je veux un gun,
pour trouer cette page
d’un point final,
devenir ce pauvre homme
qui parle seul dans la rue,
je suis calme et enragé,
cela s’appelle la précision:

Tous ces instants
à en peindre la pesanteur
dans la plus pure horreur zen.

— Denis Vanier, Vendre des armes et des peaux

Premiere

• February 27, 2022, Je suis calme et enragé·e, Studio multimédia — Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)