In March 2009, Ziya Tabassian, Kiya Tabassian and Pierre-Yves Martel will present three concerts in France. Ay! Amor…, a programme which draws its inspiration from love songs of the Mediterranean, features French-Sephardic singer Françoise Atlan.

• March 11, 2009: Conservatoire de Reims, Reims (France)
• March 13: Festival Imaginaire — Musée Guimet, Paris (France)
• March 14: Festival Instant du Monde, Nantes (France)

Mardi Spaghetti celebrates a year of twirling improv at Le Cagibi.

The front room of Le Cagibi, the comfortable, funky neighbourhood café at St-Laurent and St-Viateur, is normally populated by students and post-university types huddled over their laptops. But for the last year, the back room has been the scene of Mardi Spaghetti, a Tuesday night improvised music series curated by Josh Zubot, Philippe Lauzier, Pierre-Yves Martel and Gordon Allen. The series brings together musicians, often in whimsical combinations, and each one of the four organizers is responsible for one Tuesday per month. The musicians come from disparate musical worlds — jazz, musique actuelle, rock — but improvisation is the common thread, according to Allen. In the year since the series began, more than 100 musicians have taken part. This coming Tuesday, March 3, Mardi Spaghetti is marking its one-year anniversary with a party and a number of special events, including a reprise of Martel’s “toiletronics,” a performance from inside the washroom that sits beside Le Cagibi’s stage, and an improvisation in the alley by Allen. Allen, the trumpeter with the porkpie hat and crooked grin, has practically been a one-man scene-maker since arriving in Montréal from Guelph a couple of years ago, as he’s also one of the people behind L’Envers, the performance space at 185 Van Horne that’s been running since September. He’s proud of what Mardi Spaghetti has accomplished. “Because Mardi Spaghetti is happening every week, it’s in the back of people’s minds, so it’s now part of the fabric of the neighbourhood and that café,” Allen says. “It’s intimate, with a small stage, and the room has a particular feel to it. It’s like the back room, not the dungeon. Because of the big windows, there’s a view from the street, and people stop by and listen because of that. There was already a good level of activity in Montréal for improvised music, but this series has made the music more visible, quite literally.”

Chis Bartos, Antoine Berthiaume and Pierre-Yves Martel, as well as Philippe Battikha and Lévy Bourbonnais will be at Le Cagibi on Tuesday January 13, 2009 as part of the Mardi spaghetti weekly series for creative music.

After two concerts in Montréal in December, 2008, Isaiah Ceccarelli (percussion) and Pierre-Yves Martel (viola da gamba) will be touring France with French musician Évelyne Moser (voice, medieval fiddle). A cross between the old and new worlds, medieval song and contemporary composition, this new project explores the sonorities of ancient instruments and languages, nourished by improvisation and textural exploration.

• January 10: Café du Boulevard, Melle (France)
• January 13: Salle Ockeghem, Tours (France)
• January 16: Borie-en-Limousin, Solignac (France)
• January 18: Théâtre des Quarts-d’heure, Paris (France)
• January 24: Moulin Pousset, Coëmont (France)
• January 25: Chapelle Sainte-Anne, Tours (France)

Clic by Bernard Falaise, To Continue by Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms and Visions Fugitives op. 22 by Quartetski, have been nominated in the Musique actuelle, Electroacoustics category. Also, Brigitte Poulin’s Édifices naturels is a finalist in the Modern and Contemporary Music category. The Opus Prizes gala takes place at Salle Claude-Champagne, in Montréal, on January 25, 2009.

Ensemble SuperMusique presents its Grand Annual Concert with Y’a du bruit dans ma cabane. Musicians Jean Derome, Joane Hétu, Diane Labrosse, Pierre-Yves Martel, Danielle Palardy Roger, Pierre Tanguay and Martin Tétreault, as well as video artist David Emmanuel Fafard and sound engineer Colin Gagné, will stand where no-one stops, and create a customized universe of the rooms of a house. The concerts will take place at the SAT, in Montréal, on December 17 and 18, 2008.