Réunion des Opéras du Québec

Oct. 1, 2024

Room D, Place des Arts. 175 Sainte-Catherine Street West, Montreal, QC H2X 1Y9

Québec 2024 Roundtable organized by the Association for Opera in Canada.

The Association for Opera in Canada is organizing its annual Québec roundtable at the Opéra de Montréal. Ana Sokolović is participating in the panel "Opera and Technology."

Link to the event's website: https://www.opera.ca/quebec-roundtable-2024/

Sonorities Festival Belfast

From April 8 to April 13, 2024

Queen’s University of Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

As part of our partnership with Ulster Touring Opera, a delegation from the creative team involved in OpéRA de Poche attended the Sonorities Festival in Belfast to present phase 2 of the project. The aim of the festival is to disseminate and promote innovative

musical experiences produced via new technologies. The audience was able to discover two mobile applications presenting short operas in augmented reality: UTO AR Opera App and OpéRA de Poche.

Link to the event's website: https://sonorities.net/2024/

Operatic Instances

Nov. 25, 2023

Maison de la culture de NDG

Concert-conference organized in partnership with the Vietnamese Cultural Center

Two creative teams from the OpéRA de poche project will present their co-creation process, focusing on the relationship between musical composition and the visual dimension of the work. This presentation will be illustrated by a live performance of excerpts from their operas, sharing the concrete stage of a work created for augmented reality. This event allows for the exploration of another aspect of the real/virtual relationship, through embodied singing as opposed to recorded singing. 

This concert will be presented as part of the Semaines culturelles vietnamiennes 2023, organized by the Vietnamese Cultural Center to showcase the creations of Vietnamese artists in Montreal – including novelist and librettist Caroline Vu – and their collaborations.

Voices, Timbre(s), Identity(ies)

Nov. 24, 2023 at 3:00 p.m.

Salle Jean-Papineau-Couture

In the ever-evolving field of music research and performance, timbre is often seen as being the unique fingerprint that distinguishes each performer or instrument. However, recent studies highlight the limitations of this essentialist view, emphasizing that timbre is rather a product of performative practice, musical context, and culture. Thus, timbre, while expressive, is not synonymous with identity but a means to communicate various identities, whether authentic or constructed. 

The "Voices, Timbre(s), Identiti(es)" event addresses this complexity from multiple angles: cultural, gendered, historical and stylistic. Beyond musicological and philosophical questions, speakers will explore the creative and pedagogical implications, particularly in vocal and operatic music. They will address the style and technique of operatic singing, as well as the impact of timbral diversity in opera, particularly from cultural and identity angles.

Svadba - Wedding

Nov. 22, 2023

Bologna

Virtual spaces, concrete spaces: the power of the visual on creative thinking

Sept. 21, 2023 at 5:30 p.m.

Université de Montréal Exhibition Gallery (former UdeM Exhibition Centre)

This round table, bringing together renowned scenography professionals (Félix-Antoine Boutin and François Racine), an expert in 3D modeling and virtual scenography (Philippe Belhumeur of Normal Studio) and creative researchers in scenography, architecture and design (Marie-Josèphe Vallée and Imen Ben Youssef Zorgati) highlights the place of scenography in the creative process. The discussion centers around the possibilities of creating scenic spaces using digital tools, with the aim of returning to an enriched and renewed scenic space in the real world, placing the spectators at the heart of the process.

Operatic Constructions Exhibit

From September 5 to September 23, 2023

Galerie de l'Université de Montréal (Room B)

Opening: Thursday, September 7, 5 - 8 pm

Operatic Constructions brings together scenography, visual arts, digital technologies and sound immersion to renew the experience (spatial, aural and visual) of opera and explore the relationship of bodies to the stage space, through the presentation of four operas in different modalities.

The exhibition allows visitors to experience operas conceived for the traditional stage and works designed for virtual and augmented reality, before returning to a renewed real stage that, inspired by virtual encounters, offers concrete immersion thanks to spatialized sound devices.

Music, identity and sharing traditions: a meeting between Quebec and the Basque Country

March 3, 2023 at 9:00 a.m.

Salle Jacques-Hétu – F-3080
Music Department, Université du Québec à Montréal
1440 Saint-Denis, Montréal
Métro Berri-UQAM

As part of the Montreal/New Music Festival 2023, music professionals from Quebec and the Basque Country will be invited to discuss the relationship between musical practice and culture and tradition. This study day will focus on issues of individual and collective identity, language, spirituality and politics.

Music, spirituality and intermediality: Exploring the work of Marcel Barbeau

March 2, 2023 at 9:00 a.m.

Salon Orange – Centre Pierre-Péladeau – UQAM
300 Boul. de Maisonneuve E, Montréal
Métro Berri-UQAM

Study day as part of the Montreal/New Music Festival

Organized in partnership with the Groupe de recherche sur l'avènement et la formation des identités médiatiques (GRAFIM) and the Observatoire du cinéma québécois (OCQ), this day will invite participants from a variety of disciplines to examine the relationship between Marcel Barbeau's works, spirituality and other art forms (music, dance, theatre, film).

Golgotha, Messiaen and Boudreau

Feb. 26, 2023 at 11:00 a.m.

Salon Orange – Centre Pierre-Péladeau – UQAM
300 Boul. de Maisonneuve E, Montréal
Métro Berri-UQAM

Study day as part of the Montreal/New Music Festival

As part of the scientific activities surrounding the Montreal/New Music Festival, this study day organized by Sylvain Caron explores the mechanisms of influence and transmission in spiritually inspired music. Special attention will be paid to the figure of composer Olivier Messiaen, whose work played a significant role in the birth of musical modernity in Quebec.

International symposium Music and transcendence in the age of post-humanism

From February 23 to February 25, 2023

Presented as part of the Montreal/New Music Festival

The Canada Research Chair in Opera Creation, the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ), the Observatoire interdisciplinaire de création et de recherche en musique (OICRM) and the Groupe de recherche sur la médiatisation du son (GRMS) warmly invite you to the colloquium: "Music and Transcendence in a Posthuman Age".

Panel on women in opera

Nov. 24, 2022 at 3:00 p.m.

Université de Montréal Faculty of Music - B-484
200 Ave. Vincent-D'Indy, Montréal
Édouard-Montpetit metro station

The representation of women on the 21st-century opera stage: problems and possible solutions

The fruit of a collaboration between the Canada Research Chair in Opera Creation and the Canada Research Chair in Music and Politics, this panel brings together singers, musicologists and composer Ana Sokolović to reflect on the often-misogynistic representation of women in opera and propose solutions to overcome it.

PXR

Nov. 13, 2022

Members of the OpéRA de poche project team gave a virtual reality presentation at the PXR conference. This conference focuses on how artists are using XR in the performing arts, ways to facilitate this integration into works and audience receptivity.

The team presented the fruit of their explorations during phase 1 of the OpéRA project, demonstrating the tools they have developed to facilitate interdisciplinary creative processes specific to opera. They also discussed the impact of XR on operatic creation in the virtual space of a prototype of one of their operas.

Opera and XR Study Day - Centre Phi

Oct. 30, 2022

Phi Center

Renewing opera and its audiences in Quebec and Canada: the possibilities of mixed, virtual and augmented reality.

The aim of this study day is to bring together artistic and academic institutions working with the new technologies of mixed, virtual and augmented reality (XR) to reflect on the future of opera as a genre. The research questions are as follows: 

What possibilities do virtual and augmented reality offer, both artistically and in terms of dissemination? How can we democratize the genre and update it for the 21st century?

Watershed Music Festival

May 27, 2022

Watershed Festival, Queen’s University, Kingston (ON)

Creating Operas for Virtual and Augmented Reality: An Experience of Interdisciplinary Research-Creation

This 90-minute workshop presented the results of the first phase of the OpéRA de poche project. It brought together 15 student-researchers from 3 creative groups dedicated to projects currently under development.

ksatmukek Kisi nenulek / We would like to get to know you

March 19, 2022

Université de Montréal - Salle Claude-Champagne

Dialogue and interdisciplinary co-creation workshop with Michelle Sylliboy and Ana Sokolović.

As part of Université de Montréal's MITIG Week activities, the Faculty of Music welcomes Mi'kmaq L'nu artist and poet Michelle Sylliboy to host a day focused on interdisciplinary co-creation, organized in collaboration with our Research Chair. 

Meeting with filmmaker Charles Binamé

Feb. 8, 2022 at 4:30 p.m.

Virtual meeting

In partnership with the Canada Research Chair in Opera Creation, the OCQ Films sur l'art ciné-club presented a discussion with filmmaker Charles Binamé on the filming and webcasting of the Opéra de Montréal's production of Carmen.