Xavier Ménard – Sound artist
Solo performance 2021-22
New performance – modular synthesizer and improvisation
This new performance portrays the dichotomy between rhythm and unstable sounds. Taking inspiration to the contrast between figurative and abstract elements of a painting. Glitch and pure sounds make the music through a performance structured in composed and improvised sets.
Duo Performance (Roxane Lussier – visual artist) 2021-22
École des arts de Sutton / Sutton arts school
Live multidisciplinary unifying visual art and experimental music
Concretely, this multidisciplinary performance is an interdependent relation between plastic and music language, using an apparatus created on mesure, playing the role of an invented instrument. The dispositive, made of four of these canvases, is displayed in a room where the public can circulate to fully experience the performance. Roxane Lussier, visual artist, performs on the different canvases with graphic gestures, transformed into sound gestures with work from Xavier Ménard.
Duo performance (Samuelle Laberge – Clarinettist) 2019
MASSE Concert, Conservatoire de musique de Montréal
Mixed music performance – Clarinet, recordings and electronic music
Nos ailes trillent is a mixed music performance for clarinet and electroacoustic music. It is the result of a first draft of work in research-creation combining poetry and electroacoustic music. This composition is based on the work of Jean-Pierre Gaudreau in his work Brûlure et lumière, made of five poems inspired by the five successive movements of Quatuor à cordes No 2 by György Ligeti. Nos ailes trillent is the culminating point of this inverted process, resulting in a completely different music performance.
Collaboration with Vincent Fillion (sound artist) – 2019
Audiovisual performance
Tumultes is an audiovisual performance in the making, revolving around environmental distress and urban frustration. These are illustrated by the use of various media; fixed or live, approaching themes of waste, contaminated or abandoned spaces as well as air, sound and light pollution caused by industries and urban expansion.
Album Tensions bien tempérées – 2017
Kohlenstoff Records
[KOHL037]
This album reunites all compositions from 2016 and 2017.
Timbres sur toile
This composition is a free interpretation of Composition VII from painter Wassily Kandinsky. This work is directed by the creation of connections between visual elements of this painting and musical gestures. The structure of the composition follows Kandinsky’s creative process : in the draft, the painting, the finishing and the final look on the work.
Fragmentation(s)
Continuity vs discontinuity.
États altérés
Composition for an ensemble of 10 oscillators. Recorded on April 11th 2017. Thank you to the interprets and to Nicolas Bernier for his trust and musical direction.
Interprets:
Charlie Beaulieu, Nicolas Bernier, Renaud Bouliane, Gian Tenio Carlone,Hugo Descourviere, Francis Lecavalier, Charles-André Leroux, Mathieu Major-Parent, Émile Ouellet-Delorme, Jean-Guillaume Théorêt
Music direction : Nicolas Bernier
Micro étude no 1
First in a series of studies on micro-editing. This one is built on different sounds created by various feedback techniques.
On/Off (1,0) part 1 et 2
This creation uses the relation between electromechanics and numeric electronics. It is a physical display using sounds of six different switches. The second part of the project is an improvisation done with the dispositive (made in collaboration with Camille St-Amand) and sound synthesis.
Biography
Xavier Ménard is a montrealer composer and sound artist graduated from Université de Montréal (UdeM) with a bachelor’s degree in digital music. He starts to compose his own electroacoustic pieces in the Sound Design class by Nicolas Bernier and Electroacoustic Composition classes under the supervision of Robert Normandeau and Georges Forget. He creates his sounds with natural and instrument recordings and mixed electric components (switches, mixing boards, synthesizer, oscillators). He has formed a duo with Camille St-Armand since 2016, combining their forces in their domains as composer and industrial designers to create interactive sound installations (menard_st-amand). As creators, they are interested in bringing back century-old electromechanics processes in a dematerialized digital music era. Their installations create opportunities for live musical creation on a simple and intuitive system. Their installation On/Off (1,0) was displayed during the Festival Art Sousterrain at UdeM in march 2017 as well as the Post Audio at Clark Centre in the spring of 2018. Their interactive creation Telharmonium 2.0 was shown at FIMAV 2019 (Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville). In 2017, Xavier launches his album Tensions bien tempérées on Montreal’s label Kohlenstoff Records and his piece Fragmentation(s) makes him a laureate of the 2017 edition of Jeu de temps/Times play (JTTP) hosted by the Canadian Electroacoustic community. His composition Chasses inouïes won Hugh Le Caine’s second place in the 2018 edition of Socan Foundation. In October 2018, his composition États altérés, made for the oscillator ensemble of UdeM, features on the first album dedicated to the ensemble under the label LINE. In 2019, he pursues his creations under Codes d’accès, who supports many of his projects. He participates in a creation residency in collaboration with Vincent Fillion for his audiovisual performance Tumultes, an original idea from his collaborator presented in June at La Sala Rossa during the festival Suoni Per II Popolo. In november 2019, a mixed performance is presented at the MASSE concert, hosted by Codes d’accès. The collaboration with clarinettist Samuelle Laberge, Nos ailes trillent, is an original composition inspired by the work of Jean-Pierre Gaudreau in his poem Brûlure et lumière. Xavier has been working on performative arts with visual artist Roxane Lussier since 2021 (Rox & Xav). Their projects DEDANS and LIBÉRER MARCELLE are ongoing projects currently under research and creation.
XAVIER MÉNARD 