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eFlash! 2019-08

2019 AGM — Annual General Meeting / AGA 2019 — Assemblée générale annuelle

President’s Report / Rapport Du président

[ return to the index / Agenda ]

Welcome everyone and thanks for coming! I am happy to provide CEC members with an update on its activities over the past year. 1[1. The President’s Report starts at 4:25 in the audio recording of the AGM.]

CEC Board

You will recall that during the last AGM a move to alter the bylaws to allow for a “minimum of six” instead of “six” members on Board of Directors was tabled for a vote at a later meeting. This change was voted in unanimously during a Special General Meeting on 6 September 2018. As a result of this change it was possible to integrate two additional Board members in 2018–19: Kevin Austin and Julie Matson.

At the end of this past fiscal year, Jean Routhier resigned from the Board to be able to spend more time on family and his own artistic activities. We wish him the best in his future pursuits and thank him for his 24 years of uninterrupted service to the electroacoustic community in Canada as a CEC Board member.

Kevin Austin has resigned as well, the CEC thanks him as well for many years — decades! — of service working tirelessly with and on behalf of the CEC and the community it represents. Kevin has had several stints on the Board since writing the CEC’s Charter and initiating, with Jean-François Denis, the founding of the association in 1986.

The Board is now taking the opportunity to renew itself and is very pleased to announce some new members in its lineup: Corina MacDonald and James Andean.

There are a few further changes to note. After serving for five years as President, Eldad Tsabary has stepped down to serve as a Member-at-Large. The CEC thanks Eldad for his many contributions and direction over the years. Myriam Boucher was voted in as President, Corina as Secretary, and James joins the Board as a Member-at-Large. In summary, the CEC’s Board of Directors for 2019–20 is as follows (years in brackets indicate the current two-year terms of each Board member):

Projects

As has been the case for many years now, the CEC’s three principal ongoing and recurring annual activities are: eContact!, an online journal for electroacoustic practices; Jeu de temps / Times Play (JTTP), which recognizes the achievements of young and emerging composers and sound artists from or living in Canada; and Sonus, an online jukebox, and the largest of its kind in the world.

JTTP — Jeu de temps / Times Play

Results have just come in for the 20th edition of JTTP coordinated by the CEC, and I am pleased to be able to announce the results here, with five of the six winners in fact present here today! Note there is a tie for fifth place this year:

  1. Nicola Giannini — Eyes Draw Circle of Light (2019 / 9:18)
  2. Roger Tellier-Craig — Nulle part à trouver (2019 / 17:39)
  3. Léa Boudreau — Quatre machines pour sauver le monde (2019 / 12:20)
  4. Valentin Stip — 1109 (8:06)
  5. (ex æquo) Diego Bermudez Chamberland — Buscando la luz (2018 / 10:09)
  6. (ex æquo) Benjamin Duplantie Grenier — Terre (2019 / 8:00)

Each of the JTTP 2019 winners receive prize packages made up of contributions by Canadian and international Project Partners, of a total worth of nearly $3000 in CDs, books and magazine subscriptions, etc. Cash prizes are also awarded to the first three, thanks to the generous contributions of a number of individual donors.

CEC members will receive an announcement very soon of the publication of the webpages featuring all submissions, programme notes and composer bios, as well as events featuring JTTP 2019 works over the coming year.

Akousma has been a JTTP Project Partner since 2014 and, as in previous years, they are including this year’s JTTP First Prize work in their annual international festival of immersive digital music. Nicola’s piece will be included on the programme of the closing concert of the 16th edition of Akousma, on 24 October at Usine C in Montréal. Keep an eye on the events page for this year’s JTTP for information on further events over the coming year, currently being put in place.

Sonus

As part of the Sonus upgrade that Yves Gigon presented at last year’s AGM, some analysis, assessment and planning tasks were done for a subsequent round of more fundamental upgrades and improvements. I am very happy to report that the Canada Council for the Arts has awarded the CEC with a Sector Innovation and Development grant in the amount of $19,000. Yves and jef are working on this exciting project, with major programming enhancements being implemented by Diffusion i Média, from June to December 2019. Yves will provide a brief report on the general plans and progress of the project in a few minutes, and I will provide members with a further update in the October 2019 edition of eFlash!

eContact!

You will have noticed that since last year’s AGM there have been no new issues of eContact! published. The Board decided to accept a pause in the production in order to focus more of its energies on redressing the CEC’s financial situation in regards to Canada Council funding (which the CEC Treasurer, Shawn Pinchbeck, explained during last year’s AGM).

During this time, the journal’s Coordinating Editor, jef chippewa, has developed a broad, three-year plan for the journal that aims to tighten its focus and broaden its coverage. This integrated plan will not only strengthen the identity of the journal, but will also allow for an increased use of cross-issue web links, thereby making the publication more dynamic as a whole, in contrast to the predominantly “standalone” format of earlier issues.

The Board is pleased to announce that activities have resumed for the journal and that you can already plan on having issue 20.3, on “Media-Specific Sonic Practices,” as part of your reading list in mid-September. Following that, the 80th issue will be published and will launch the 21st volume of the electronic journal in January 2020, with two more issues in that volume to appear in May and September. More details about the issue themes will be posted very soon on the eContact! website, at which point I would invite you all to check out the Call for Contributions page in order to stay informed about upcoming issues of eContact! that you might be interested in contributing to.

Closing Remarks

Many thanks to all for being here today, CEC members and anyone else who has joined in person or is listening to the webcast. Thanks are also due to Concordia University for offering the space and technical support that made the webcasting of the AGM possible.

I would invite Shawn Pinchbeck to give more details on the CEC’s financial situation with his Treasurer’s Report.

Myriam Boucher
President of the CEC Board
Montréal, Tuesday, 27 August 2019

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