eFlash! 2018-08
2018 AGM — Annual General Meeting / AGA 2018 — Assemblée générale annuelle
President’s Report / Rapport du Président
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Hello to all CEC members, CEC board members and guests. Welcome to the Annual General Meeting of the CEC, which this year is taking place at Concordia University, Department of Music.
This time the AGM is held in the midst of the ICMPC-ESCOM conference, held simultaneously in four cities, with Concordia hosting the Montréal hub.
I would like to begin with an update on activities this past year.
eContact! — The CEC’s Online Journal for Electroacoustic Practices
Recent Publications
Since last year’s AGM, we have released four new issues, including 20.2 (TIES 2017), which is about to be released.
As always, all issues of the journal are open access at econtact.ca, starting from the very first issue published in 1998 on Women in Electroacoustics.
This year’s issues were:
Guest Editor: Nicolas Bernier. Sound artists have always maintained a strong relation with the visual. This issue of eContact! is more specifically interested in the creative use of sound and light. Historical and analytical reflections are complemented by contributions that bring “to light” different artistic perspectives and practices. (October 2017)
Any discussion of notation for electroacoustic and digital media necessarily addresses several related and equally important issues. An understanding of the nature, needs and intentions of visual representation help ensure the effective, appropriate communication and transmission of the notated work or performance practice. (January 2018)
eContact! 20.1 — JTTP 2017: 18th Jeu de temps / Times Play
Recent works by young and/or emerging composers and sound artists from or living in Canada are featured in the 18th edition of Jeu de temps / Times Play, coordinated annually by the CEC since 2000. JTTP 2017 events include a special concert in the 3rd Sea of Sound Festival, held in Edmonton in April 2018. (February 2018)
eContact! 20.2 — TIES 2017: 11th Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium
Québec sound artist Chantal Dumas was the Keynote Speaker for the 11th edition of the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium. (August 2018)
Financial Situation
Overall the financial situation of the CEC continues to be healthy. However, one thing that reflects a change in our finances is a switch to three rather than four issues of eContact! each year. Returning to publishing four issues a year would be possible in the future with additional finances to cover the necessary workload.
More details about the financial situation will be presented in the Treasurer’s Report. I would, however, mention that the relief of one issue allowed the Coordinating and Copy Editor (jef chippewa) to catch up on accumulated delays in production and bring the journal to a steadier and more regular publication schedule.
New Publishing Schedule
In the upcoming year, eContact! publication schedule will have issues released every four months, on the 15th of January, May and September. Call for Submission deadlines now fall on the first of the month prior to publication.
This schedule is a change from a fiscal year scheduling to a calendar year scheduling, which better matches the SOCAN Foundation and CCA New Funding Model (launched in 2017).
The next issue to look forward to is 20.3 — Media-Specific Music, followed by the three issues in volume 21 in 2019.
Kudos to jef chippewa, the long-time orchestrator of eContact!, for his dedicated work. He is the heart and soul of this very important electronic magazine.
JTTP
Starting this year, JTTP is unlinked from eContact!, which will allow publishing and promoting the results more efficient time-wise.
Results will be made public in August, with pages that will include audio, programme notes and composer bios for all submissions, an events page, and a list of our many esteemed supporters and contributors who help tremendously to make JTTP successful.
The CEC has been coordinating this annual project since 2000 in support of recent work by young and emerging composers and sound artists in Canada.
As we await the public announcement of this year’s results, I am very happy to announce this year’s winners to you:
- Ilyaa Ghafouri — Valence (2018 / 7:33)
- David Ledoux — I. Ville aux cent clochers (2018 / 11:30), from Cathédrales (2018)
- Roger Tellier-Craig — Duelle (2017 / 9:14)
- Vincent Fillion — Québécoiseries (2018 / 9:15)
- Jon Martin — III. Seven Vignettes (2017 / 14:31), from Open Doors and Parallel Windows (2017)
Prize packages consisting of contributions by Project Partners from around the world, of a worth of nearly $3000 in CDs and magazine subscriptions, etc., have been given to the five winners. Additionally, cash prizes were given to the first three, also thanks to generous contributions of a number of individuals.
[At this point in the audio transcript CEC Admin jef chippewa arrived and the meeting was put on pause briefly while he was set up and the audio and video feed adjusted. No CEC business was discussed so this interruption has been edited out in the audio transcript.]
Concerts Featuring Winning JTTP Works
Every year since 2014 we have coordinated a concert of the five winning pieces in a high-profile context with an international Project Partner (in Portugal, Berlin and Mexico). The 1st Prize work has been presented in the prestigious festival Akousma, Montréal’s annual festival of immersive digital music.
For the 2017 edition, JTTP winners travelled to Edmonton to present their works in the Sea of Sound festival, coordinated by BEAMS — Boreal Electroacoustic Music Society and the University of Alberta. The organizers, CEC Treasurer Shawn Pinchbeck and Scott Smallwood, inform us the festival was a resounding success and JTTP guests were celebrated in a dedicated concert during this three-day festival.
We are very happy to report that the Canada Council for the Arts and the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec have again supported these young and emerging composers with Travel Grants so they could all attend the Edmonton event.
Here are some JTTP 2018 events to look forward to:
- 1st place winner Ilyaa Ghafouri has been invited to present his work on October 20th during the 15th edition of Akousma;
- Next spring, the five prizewinning works will be presented in Sound Junction 2019 (26–27 April), organized by Adrian Moore and Adam Stanović [formerly Stansbie] at the University of Sheffield. (Also featured in this edition of the festival is Canadian composer David Berezan.)
SONUS
I’m delighted to report that we have indeed delivered on our promise to upgrade the CEC’s electroacoustic jukebox, Sonus. Our long-time administrator Yves Gigon spent much of the winter making it happen. Sonus has a brand new shiny interface, now publicly available, with many new features:
- An updated new online player;
- Substantially improved navigability;
- Improved submission process;
- A radio-like feature;
- Updating recommendations.
It’s really great. I feel very pleased and proud for it. So here, I would like to officially announce the new Sonus.ca, the CEC’s online electroacoustic sound and music library.
I will let Yves give you the details about this upgrade, which was made possible by a Special Project grant awarded by the SOCAN Foundation.
CEC Board
The CEC’s Board of Directors for 2018–19 at the present remains as it was this past year (years in brackets indicate the current two-year terms of each Board member):
- President: Eldad Tsabary (Montréal, 2018–20);
- Vice-President: Carey Dodge (Vancouver, 2017–19);
- Secretary: Jean Routhier (Vancouver, 2017–19);
- Treasurer: Shawn Pinchbeck (Edmonton, 2018–20);
- Members at Large: Joseph Hyde (Bath UK, 2017–19), Myriam Boucher (Montréal, 2017–19).
However, we would like to propose a small change to the Bylaws (specifically section 3.1) that would affect the board structure — in a positive way we believe. We will discuss this item following the presentation of all Reports in “Other Items”.
TIES
Several people have noted the conspicuous absence of a call for submissions to the Toronto International Electroacoustic Symposium (TIES) this year.
At this point, the fate of TIES is unclear, as NAISA’s situation has changed. There has been discussion between NAISA and our former president David Ogborn (who initiated the symposium in 2007) about transforming TIES into something else.
I have been in touch with David and there is a general plan to switch from the Toronto format to a movable Canadian Electroacoustic Symposium starting in summer 2019 at McMaster University, and potentially summer 2020 at Concordia. But this is still in preliminary discussions.
In the meantime, we would like to thank NAISA for 11 amazing years of support as well as Matthew Fava at CMC-Ontario Region for his engaged and positive presence in TIES planning and operation since 2014.
Closing Remarks
Thank you all again for being here. Thanks to Concordia University Department of music for providing this space, and to the ICMPC-ESCOM conference Technical Director Evan Montpellier and technician Nick Lavigne for the technical support, audio network and streaming he provided.
Next I would like to invite Kevin Austin to present the Treasurer’s Report prepared by our treasurer Shawn Pinchbeck who couldn’t be here today
Eldad Tsabary
President of the CEC Board
Montréal, Friday, 27 July 2018
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