eFlash! 2004-11

CEC AGM November 2004

President’s Address — Report for AGM 2004

The CEC Board:

President: Ian Stewart (2004-2006)
Vice-President: Laurie Radford (2004-2006)
Secretary: Jean Routhier (2004-2006)
Treasurer: Mark Hanneson (2004-2006)
Members-at-Large: Kevin Austin (1998-2006), Nicolas Basques (2001-2005), Pierre Alexandre Tremblay (2004-2006)

Sonus

Sonus continues to expand, and now houses over 1400 pieces. It is also becoming more user-friendly, and several new search features have recently been added. Site stats indicate tens of thousands of visits to Sonus. As part of the next phase of the site's development, three galleries are in the works from guest curators, which will launch the gallery portion of the webpage. This will help to give some structure to the collection, promote the work of composers who submit work, offer a valuable teaching aid and provide an interesting listening experience for repeat visitors. In addition, organizations and EA record labels will have profiles with Sonus playlists in the same section of the site.

CEC CDs

The Cache 2003 double CD, produced in partnership with Sonic Arts Network, is being pressed, and will soon be posted to CEC members. The 2004 edition of the Jeu de temps project has also successfully concluded, and Cache 2004 will be released sometime in the new year. A new Presence CD has been put on hold for the time being. The question has been raised whether the CEC should be exploring DVD (multichannel) releases in the near future, especially considering that this is the direction being adopted by some other major EA labels.

eContact

eContact will again roll out four editions this year. As in the past few years, the first issue, already on site, is a profile of the annual Jeu de temps project and submissions. Building on the success of last year's EA conference in Nova Scotia, held in partnership with CMC-Atlantic Canada, eContact will feature a regional focus on Atlantic Canada. There will also be a historical edition on Hugh Lecaine, and an edition comprising talks and audio from the Harvest Moon symposium held in Montreal in September. This will include articles on a variety of issues, from presentation of multichannel EA to mastering and sound quality.

Funding

The CEC's funding (from the Canada Council for the Arts, publishing section) for eContact has been renewed again this year. Complete details can be found in the financial reports. In addition, the CEC has applied to the SOCAN Foundation for core funding, and to the Canadian Culture Online Partnership Fund for a Sonus development grant, and more specifically to preserve historical Canadian EA work, and make it available within Sonus. Results of these applications are expected early in 2005.

Conference

There has been much board discussion about planning a national conference in September 2005, and possibly a follow up in Sept 2006. This will either take place in Montreal, or in several locations across Canada, in partnership with local EA groups.

-Ian Stewart