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eFlash! 2021-09

2021 AGM — Annual General Meeting / AGA 2021 — Assemblée générale annuelle

President’s Report / Rapport de la présidente

[ return to the index / Agenda ]

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 8:14 in the audio recording of the AGM.] But before doing so, I would like to offer a few words on some changes you may have noticed in the structure and makeup of the Board.

Joseph Hyde resigned at the end of this past fiscal year. He was a Member-at-Large since 2015. We wish him the best in his future pursuits and thank him for his six years of uninterrupted service to the electroacoustic community in Canada as a CEC Board member.

With Jo’s departure, the Board has taken the opportunity to renew itself a little and is very pleased to welcome two new members in its lineup: Terri Hron and Sarah Harris. We are very much looking forward to having these new voices “on board” and having their experiences and perspectives help drive the direction of the CEC in the coming years.

There are a couple of other changes to note. Carey Dodge has stepped down from the position of Vice-President to serve as a Member-at-Large. The CEC is thankful for his many contributions since 2011 and his vice-direction since 2013. James Andean (Board member since 2019) was voted in as Vice-President and we look forward to his contributions in this new position.

I would like to thank the continuing, outgoing and new CEC Board members for their contributions to a healthy electroacoustic community across Canada and abroad, and for their commitment to the association.

Now let’s talk about the CEC’s activities.

Core Projects

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

JTTP — Jeu de temps / Times Play

The results have just been completed for the 22nd edition of JTTP coordinated by the CEC, and we are so pleased to share these with you here today. The winning JTTP 2021 works, as selected by an international jury, are as follows (note there was a tie for third place this year):

  1. Pablo Geeraert and Joseph Sims — Esquisse d’une Sandbox (2021 / 11:50)
  2. Charles St-André — Espace Clos (2021 / 4:54) [videomusic]
  3. [ex æquo] Diego Bermudez Chamberland — Destin//Trouble (2021 / 17:26)
  4. [ex æquo] Antoine Lussier — Disjonction (2021 / 10:30)
  5. Véro Marengère — Roserade (2021 / 4:30) [videomusic]
  6. Jean-Philippe Jullin — Nadir (2021 / 10:00)

Additionally, four new annual Thematic Awards initiated by Kevin Austin form a new component within the larger JTTP project and are being launched as part of this edition. JTTP participants self-nominate themselves for one or more of these awards and the jury votes on the nominated works. Here are the recipients of the first edition of these awards, as per the jury’s votes:

The Hildegard Westerkamp Award for soundscape and sound installation
  Colin Frank — Forays Into Expansive Terrain (2020 / 20:06)

The Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux Award for self-identified female or non-binary electroacoustic artists
  Véro Marengère — Roserade (2021 / 4:30)

The Jean Piché Award for videomusic, new media and creative coding
  Charles St-André — Espace Clos (2021 / 4:54)

The Martin Gotfrit and Martin Bartlett Award for live electroacoustic practices
  Marie Anne Bérard — Éphémérides (2021 / 10:45)

On behalf of the CEC, I would like to congratulate all the JTTP 2021 winners and award recipients, and also to welcome those of them who have joined us online today for the AGM!

The JTTP 2021 winners will receive prize packages of contributions by Canadian and international Project Partners; cash prizes are also awarded to the first-, second- and third-place winners, as well as to the award recipients.

You will receive announcement very soon of the publication of the webpages featuring all submissions, programme notes, composer bios and information about upcoming events featuring JTTP 2021 works, as well as names of the jury members and Project Partners.

Because of the effects of the pandemic, many artistic activities are just starting to get back up to speed, so we hope to soon be able to share news with the membership about the JTTP 2021 Partner for the Special Project, who will present all winning works live in concert. But already we can confirm that the Akousma festival will include this year’s First Prize work by Pablo Geeraert and Joseph Sims, as well as JTTP 2020 First Prize winner Mélanie Frisoli’s work (last year’s edition of Akousma was cancelled because of Covid).

Many thanks are due to all JTTP partners and donors for their contributions and continued support of the work of young and/or emerging electroacoustic artists from or based in Canada, and for helping the CEC coordinate JTTP for the 22nd time.

Sonus, CAP and a Summer Internship

This summer the CEC is coordinating a small project to update the player format used in the CAP (Concordia Archival Project) Media Library. In parallel, artists with works in CAP are being invited to also include their works in Sonus, the CEC’s online sound library for electroacoustic works, which has an interface that can house a greater body and range of information about individual artists and works. 2[2. Notably thanks to upgrades supported by the SOCAN Foundation and the Canada Council for the Arts (see the August 2018 and August 2019 editions of eFlash! for details).] Under the guidance of Yves Gigon, Sarah Harris is working on the Sonus component of this project as an intern, thanks to the support of Concordia University’s Elspeth McConnell Fine Arts Award. Several artists have not only responded positively to her invitations but have also expanded their catalogue by submitting more works to Sonus. As a result, still in the midst of the internship, we have already seen an increase of over 100 works in Sonus, and more are expected as Sarah’s internship wraps up. These new submissions will be featured in the Sonus Spotlight in late autumn, following a Spotlight on the JTTP 2021 winners and award recipients.

eContact!

It has been a somewhat slow year for the journal, as our Coordinating Editor has been concentrating much of his time and energy on raising a new family member. But we’re looking forward to having jef chippewa back working on a number of exciting upcoming issues of eContact! — many thanks for your patience with the production delays!

Submissions have been received and production has begun for the live coding and laptop orchestra issue (21.1); we will share more news about that in the fall, when it is planned to be released.

Also note that CEC members can check out the Call for Contributions page at any time! Upcoming issues — that you might perhaps be interested in contributing to? — are as follows:

Strategic Plan 2020–2024

As you know from my 2020 President’s Report and the February 2021 eFlash!, the CEC’s Board of Directors has set in motion a four-year Strategic Plan for the CEC, with a number of initiatives meant to foster a strong and passionate community that reflects the diversity of its artists and their geography. I am happy to report that two of the six proposed Operating Plans are in place: a collaboration with CMMAS — Centro Mexicano por la Música y las Artes Sonoras (Morelia, Mexico) on JTTP 2022 and the initiation of a new residencies component starting with JTTP 2021 (a year earlier than planned). The plan to start having “enhanced” AGMs in 2020 has been delayed by Covid, but we hope to be able to launch this in 2022. Over the course of the coming year we will be working on the remaining initiatives — a Strategy for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, a Public Outreach Project and the 25th Anniversary Edition of JTTP — and I will report on developments related to those activities next year.

Closing Remarks

As you are all well aware, due to the various effects and implications of the pandemic it has been a slow and sometimes difficult year for many artists, and we hope your artistic activities are starting to get back to some semblance of normal! But I am happy to report that the CEC’s core activities have not been drastically affected and we are keen to help support and promote electroacoustic artists and the renewal of their activities as we emerge from a very peculiar year-and-a-half.

Thanks to all for joining us online for the CEC’s 2021 AGM.

I would now like to invite Shawn Pinchbeck to give more details on these items with his Treasurer’s Report for the 2020–21 fiscal year.

Myriam Boucher
President of the CEC Board
Montréal, Thursday, 26 August 2021

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