Francis Dhomont - Simulacres: un autoportrait (1991)

Radiophonic music, with music and text by Francis Dhomont

Featuring the voices of (in order of appearance) Marie Pelletier, Francis Dhomont, Pierre Schaeffer, Françoise Schmitt, Jean-louis Ostrowski, Marthe Forget, Pierre Louet, Arthur Bergeron and Michèle Montrelet.

Simulacres: un autoportrait - 28:34

This piece makes associations between a poetic reading of electroacoustic sound images, and the way I make use of these images in my pieces. Extracts from many of my pieces are quoted, but there are also elements from unpublished works, as well as numerous original passages. It's a kind of poem which darts around several obsessions and recurrent themes in my output. That is why I consider the piece a kind of self-portrait, and it should be understood that this reflecting (in both senses of the word) on myself is purely subjective, with many a metaphorical detour.

Apart from my own voice, all others heard come from various interviews and commentaries, most of which were recorded by myself.

Commissioned by Radio-France and l'INA-GRM, Paris, and realised in the composer's own studio in Montreal. World premiere 12th February 1991, broadcast on France-Musique, Paris with the first concert performance on 29th August 1995 at the International Festival of Acousmatic Art «FUTURA 95», in CREST, France. The North-American premiere took place on 20th February 1999 at the «Rien à voir» festival, Montréal.

Francis Dhomont
Paris, 1926

Francis Dhomont has worked in electroacoustics from the very beginnings of this art. Five-time winner at the Bourges International Electroacoustic Music Competition (France) - where he was also awarded the Magisterium prize in 1988 - and laureate of the Prix Ars electronica 92 and 93, he has received numerous international distinctions and awards.

An author of theoretical texts and essays, he has been the editor of L'espace du son (The Space of Sound) published by Musiques & Recherches (Belgium) and Electroacoustique-Québec published by the canadian issue CIRCUIT. He has produced many Acousmathèques radio programs for INA-GRM (Radio-France, Paris) and coproduced with Diane Maheux the radio series Voyage au bout de l'inouï (journey to the Unheard-of) (Radio-Canada, Montréal). His music appears in the Charles Binamé's film : Eldorado.

Convinced of the originality of acousmatic art, his work (since 1963) is comprised esentially of works for tape bearing witness to his continued interest in morphological interplay and sense/sound ambiguities.
Since 1978, he has divided his time between France and Québec where he teaches electroacoustic composition at the University of Montréal.

He is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre (1989) and a Founding (1986) and Honorary Member (1989) of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC). He now focuses on composition and theory.

Francis Dhomont
dhomont.wick@sympatico.ca

translation: Pete Stollery
p.stollery@abdn.ac.uk
http://www.petestollery.com

© Productions electro Productions (*PeP*) 1999