actuellecd

Track listing detail

Notre meute

Gabriel Dharmoo / Gabriel Dharmoo

  • Year of composition: 2012-13, 18
  • Duration: 12:40
  • Instrumentation: 5 a capella voices
  • Commission: SMCQ, with support from the CCA

Stereo

ISRC CAA4J2010021

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

Notre meute (Our Pack) is an ethnographic fiction evoking the music and manners of an invented population, whose origins are geographically and temporally unknown. Apparently singing, other times talking, sometimes wailing, other times stammering, “our pack” will (un) fairly be perceived in the ambiguous spectrum that ranges from the “primitive” to the “civilized,” from the “savage” to the “sophisticated.”

[xii-19]

Premiere

  • February 25, 2013, Montréal / Nouvelles Musiques 2013: Love Songs, Cathédrale Christ Church, Montréal (Québec)

Performers

Recording

  • 2019-07-05, Blaise Borboën-LéonardStudio Makina, Montréal (Québec)

Mixing

Mastering

Futile Spells

Gabriel Dharmoo / Gabriel Dharmoo

  • Year of composition: 2016, 19
  • Duration: 14:02
  • Instrumentation: chorus
  • Commission: Soundstreams

Stereo

ISRC CAA4J2010023

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

In recent works, I imagine strange millennium-old vocal styles/techniques from fictional cultures. This piece focuses on magical, supernatural or ritualistic spells that might have belonged to ancient populations. But if these civilizations could not save themselves from extinction, can one place trust in their belief systems? Should one dismiss these spells as merely futile, or does cynicism prevent one from recognizing the magical?

[xii-19]

Awards

Performers

Recording

  • 2019-06-29, Nataq Huault • Chapelle du Camp musical Père Lindsay

Mixing

  • 2019, Nataq Huault

Mastering

Averse et enfants Lpiènr

Gabriel Dharmoo

  • Year of composition: 2019
  • Duration: 2:28

Stereo

ISRC CAA4J2010025

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

Comprovisation created after vocal exploration workshops with 8-14 year-old campers at Camp musical Père Lindsay.

[xii-19]

Performers

Recording

  • 2019-08-04, Nataq Huault • Chapelle du Camp musical Père Lindsay

Mixing

  • 2019, Nataq Huault

Mastering

Vaai Irandu

Gabriel Dharmoo / Gabriel Dharmoo

  • Year of composition: 2009, 19
  • Duration: 8:33
  • Instrumentation: choir and 2 voices
  • Commission: Ensemble contemporain de Montréal

Stereo

ISRC CAA4J2010026

  • 44,1 kHz, 16 bits

This vocal piece explores the timbral and polyphonic potential of the human voice, as evoked in the Tamil title Vaai Irandu, which means Two Mouths.

The first mouth’s material is inspired ragas of South Indian Carnatic music, namely Kalyani, Thodi, Shankarabharanam, Abhogi and Saveri. Melodic fragments and gamakas (ornaments) from these ragas are developed in sequence to construct what we could call an imaginary metaraga.

The second mouth consists in percussive phonemes, superimposed to the melodic line of the first. These clicks and ejective consonants gradually reveal an arithmetical rhythmical construction typical of Carnatic percussion figures.

Composed after the composer’s first trip to Chennai, dedicated to learning Carnatic music. Overtly inspired by melodic and rhythmical fragments from this South Indian classical music, this “fiction” is the closest one to reality. Dharmoo had already adapted the piece from the angle of fake culture by integrating it as the opening of his solo show Anthropologies imaginaires — labeled as a Ruonshtan invocation prayer in that context. Meeting Priya Shah in 2017, a singer interested in Hindustani, Carnatic, jazz and improvised music amongst others, sparked the idea of singing Vaai Irandu as a duet for vocalists with timbres closer to the source of inspiration.

[xii-19]


2nd prize in the Godfrey-Ridout Award of the SOCAN Foundation Awards for Young Composers (Canada, 2008)

Performers

Recording

  • 2019-08-04, Nataq Huault • Bande à part; Chapelle du Camp musical Père Lindsay

Mixing

Mastering