Language and geography pose formidable challenges to those who’d like to see more interplay between Quebec and British Columbia, but many artists are working to bridge that gap—most notably in improvised music, where there’s been a strong connection between Vancouver and Montréal for more than 20.

The two cities share some common attributes, notably a degree of isolation from the mainstream and a willingness to experiment. But affordable housing and superior funding have allowed Montréal’s players to develop an idiom all their own: musique actuelle, which blends elements of American-style free jazz, progressive rock, contemporary chamber music, and Gallic joie de vivre in a sound that’s as sophisticated as haute cuisine and as earthy as joual.

Vital though this music is, until recently some of its practitioners were feeling like it might be an endangered species.

“I was really worried to see the players and the audience always getting older and older, with no renewal,” says saxophone and flute specialist Jean Derome, reached at his Montréal home. “It was like we were just kind of an error in history—something that happened that won’t happen again. But now we’re seeing a lot of younger musicians starting to do free improv, or mixing acoustic instruments with electronics and so on. There’s a new generation of musicians that is thinking creatively and not just standing on the shoulders of a few originals.”

As one of the key architects of musique actuelle, Derome is understandably pleased by this influx of new talent—a phenomenon, he adds, that’s happening in Vancouver, too. This weekend, he’ll guest with Vancouver’s NOW Orchestra at its annual Hear It NOW festival, and while he’s long been familiar with bandleader Coat Cooke’s work, many of the faces in the recently revamped septet will be new to him.

“I was really surprised to see that the lineup has changed, that it’s not anymore the big 19-piece band,” he says. “But I had the feeling that Coat was finding it difficult… there was so much history between all the players, and sometimes that can almost be a trap. You feel that things can’t change.”

The new NOW band, which features a mix of jazz-based and rock-influenced players, is well suited to the material Derome’s bringing with him, which includes a few numbers culled from the repertoire of Les Dangereux Zhoms, the extroverted quintet that was for many years a fixture on the Montréal scene. The reed virtuoso will also have his own powers taxed: NOW has commissioned Vancouver New Music artistic director Giorgio Magnanensi to write a new piece for the band, and Derome reports that it includes a saxophone line that’s so complex even he’s having difficulty figuring it out.

Telephone conversations with the composer are helping, however. “The music is difficult, but the guy is not,” says Derome of Magnanensi — an assessment that could be applied equally well to this engaging saxophonist and his work.

It’s hard to think of a better source of inspiration for the longstanding Montréal trio Les Poules than that of the phoenix. The trio — saxophonist Joane Hétu, electronicist Diane Labrosse and percussionist Danielle Palardy Roger — has been playing together for more than a decade, which in the experimental music world mirrors the 500-year lifespan of the mythical bird. And birds are not only an interest for the group (their name translates as “the hens”), but can at times make for a nice metaphor for their sound: small and delicate yet, like a tree full of sparrows, able to kick up a good bit of cacophony.

Phenix is comprised of five parts and a total of 24 tracks, all of which are under three minutes. But they seem to go by without break or pause, a series of innovative miniatures which never sound simply like a trio playing. As a sort of rhythm section, Labrosse and Roger are endlessly creative: the sampler is used to create low, resonating tones, static and white noise, and the percussion more often plays atop than pushes from behind. Which could leave Hetu’s sax and voice out front if she, too, weren’t so committed to the group process. Long exhalations, upper-register squeals and syllables sung slowly or whispered circle like little eddies throughout the mix.

There’s something to be said in the improv world for the excitement of first-time meetings, but there’s also much to be said for years of working together in a small, tightly knit community. As central figures in the Ambiances Magnetiques collective, Les Poules have the knowledge of shared experience that allows them to flesh out ideas with their own soundworlds.

Viola da gambist Pierre-Yves Martel will be playing solo concerts in Norway and France as well as collaborating with Norwegian musicians Kim Myhr and Christian Wallumrød.

• November 9: with Christian Wallumrød and Kim Myhr at the Ringve Museum, Trondheim (Norway)
• November 15 Festival Fri Resonans, Trondheim (Norway)
• November 17: (sic!) Improvised Music Series, Oslo (Norway)
• November 21: Rude Awakening, Montpellier (France)

The next Mercredimusics will feature Diane Labrosse, Philippe Lauzier and Ziya Tabassian on November 5, 2008 at Casa Obscura in Montréal.

Americain saxophonist Joe Giardullo and Days From Land (Gordon M Allen, Alexandre St-Onge, Gmackrr) will be at Le Cagibi on Tuesday November 4, 2008 as part of the Mardi spaghetti weekly series for creative music.