Ida Toninato & Pierre-Luc LecoursCA/QC
Pierre-Luc Lecours is a composer, sound and video artist based in Montréal. His artistic practice covers many different mediums and aesthetics, ranging from music to video and performance. His artistic process draws relationships between form, format and content, in a constantly renewed search for expressiveness. His influences come as much from the currents of instrumental and electroacoustic contemporary music as from electronic and experimental music. His performances feature electronic instruments combined with traditional instrumentation and written-down scoring. Lecours completed a Master’s in composition at the Music Faculty of the Université de Montréal under the supervision of Pierre Michaud and is pursuing a doctoral degree under Professor Nicolas Bernier’s guidance. As a researcher, he is interested in the interpretation of electronic music, the decompartmentalization of contemporary musical practices, the dialogue between various (electroacoustic and instrumental) music cultures and heritages, and the exploration of new forms of audiovisual expression.
The quality of his work has been acknowledged by Exhibitronic (2017), the Destellos Electroacoustic Composition Competition (2014), the Young Composers Competition of the SOCAN Foundation (2014) and the CEC’s Jeu de temps / Times Play (JTTP) (2014, ’17). His work has been featured in several international events, including Akousma (Québec), BIAN (Québec), Biennale Némo (France), Currents New Media (USA), Digital Weekender (UK), Elektra (Québec), Göteborg Sound Art (Sweden), HYBRID biennale (Germany), INSCAPE (South Korea), L’Espace du son (Belgium), La folle journée de Nantes (France), Futura (France), Muslab (Mexico), MUTEK (Québec), MUTEK (Barcelona), Next (Slovakia), Résonances électriques (France), Seeing Sound (UK), and Vision of Future (USA).
Ida Toninato is a saxophonist, composer and virtual reality producer. Her artistic practice unfolds at the crossroads of acoustic exploration, the resonance of reverberant spaces and the creation of hybrid sonic universes in which electronics and instrumentals are in symbiosis. Her most recent album, We Become Giants, was composed entirely in a water tank with 40 seconds of reverb and is released by Californian label Dragon's eye Recordings. A sonic documentary, Le rêve d’Ida (Ida’s dream), has been made by cinematographer Frédéric Dallaire on her composition process in reverberant spaces.
Her recent achievements in artistic direction and composition have been nominated for two OPUS Prices by the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec, in the Concert of the year and the Premiere of the year categories. Since 2020, she has been an associate producer at the indie video game creation studio Trebuchet in order to develop artistic virtual reality works in which the user has a part of co-creation. Her most exciting artistic projects are composed and performed with some of Canada’s most talented artists: Alongside electronic musician Pierre-Luc Lecours, she composed the works Inner Seas and Homeostasis for Mutek (Montreal) and Inscape (South Korea) festivals. She signs alongside violist Jennifer Thiessen the album The Space Between Us [Ambiances Magnétiques], nominated for an OPUS and a JUNO awards.
Toninato holds a Doctorate in interpretation form University of Montreal and her creations have been hosted for residencies at the Goethe Institut in Salvador de Bahia and at Hellerau – European Center for the Arts. Her performances have been welcomed in festivals in Europe, North and South America and the Emirates.
Pierre-Luc Lecours and Ida Toninato bring together the acoustic and electronic worlds by the encounter of baritone saxophone, modular synthesizer and real time video generation. Influenced by the concepts of balance, ecology and the equilibrium resulting from the Fibonacci sequence, they delve into the intersection of nature and humanity to create their second full-length show, Homeostasis. This performance presents the performers as parts of a system completed with video projection and lights. Images and sounds constantly recalibrate each other, renewing their points of connection. This process of creating and disrupting balance allows both the performers and the audience to broaden their perspective on the system. Harnessing the full spectrum of their sonic encounter and creating a continuous flow of intensity in dialogue with the video content, Toninato and Lecours become one powerful entity by sometimes merging, sometimes opposing their sound: they engage in a process of seeking equilibrium within them, between them and their natural environment.
Project credits:
Artistic direction: Ida Toninato & Pierre-Luc Lecours
Curatorial direction: Jay Bang
