Time: I can only see how time flies ... It is stunning! The irony is that much of my creative job is to ‘manage’ (musical) time. I can compress it, stretch it, break it up, accelerate it, slow it down, layer it, and so on. But in ‘real’ life, time inevitably flows linearly, and I can’t do a thing about it ... How strange it all is.”
-– Walter Boudreau
The Radical Expeditions of Walter Boudreau
Matthew Rankin | Director
René Chénier | Producer
Matthew Rankin studied Quebec history at McGill University and Université Laval before pursuing film studies at the Institut national de l’image et du son in Montreal. This “one-man band” director has completed nine independent shorts, two medium-length films, a web series and countless film experiments. In 2013, he was an artist in residence at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and in 2014, he received the inaugural National Media Arts Prize (Independent Media Arts Alliance) for his body of work.
Walter Boudreau
2015 Lifetime Artistic Achievement (Classical Music)
Composer, conductor and artistic director
Composer and conductor Walter Boudreau is one of the leading lights of contemporary music in Canada. As artistic director and principal conductor of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ) since 1988, he has brought that organization international renown. He has directed prestigious musical ensembles and orchestras across Canada and abroad, and his works have been played around the world. An ardent promoter of musical creation, particularly by Canadian artists, he works tirelessly to raise awareness of and appreciation for contemporary music.
Born in Montreal in 1947, he studied piano and saxophone, and by age 18 was leading his own jazz quartet, with whom he also recorded his first LP. In 1968, he founded an odd 33 member band called L’Infonie, described as somewhere between “happening, jazz, contemporary music and multimedia.” Attracted to composition, Mr. Boudreau continued his studies at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal, McGill University and the University of Montreal. With numerous grants from the Canada Council, he went on to study in both Europe and the U.S.
He has composed some 60 works, from symphonies and concertos to film, theatre and ballet scores, many reflecting his keen interest in science and spirituality. He has also organized numerous participatory events, notably the
Millennium Symphony (2000), a collective work by 19 composers for 333 musicians and 2,000 bell-ringers.
“New music is fantastic,” enthuses Mr. Boudreau. “We’ve been plagued with an obsolete image from the 1950s of all these boring exercises that emptied the halls. It has nothing to do with the amazing array of different works in contemporary music. There’s something there for everybody. So come to the concerts! Enjoy new music!”
Walter Boudreau is a Member of the Order of Canada (2013) and a Knight of the National Order of Quebec. Other distinctions include the Molson Prize (Canada Council for the Arts), Prix Denise-Pelletier, Montreal Urban Community Arts Council Grand Prix, and several Prix Opus (Conseil québécois de la musique).