"Jean Derome. Born Montréal, Québec, 1955. esidence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (saxophones (alto, baritone, soprano), flutes (flute, bass flute, piccolo, alto flute, recorders), keyboards, small wind instruments (ocarinas, jew's harp, game calls, toys...), percussion, invented instruments, voice)

One of the most active and eclectic musicians on the Canadian creative music scene, Jean Derome has managed to earn the recognition of a larger public, a rare feat in that field. Thanks to his large-scale musique actuelle projects, his compositions, his work as an improviser, his jazz groups and his music for the screen and the stage, Derome ranks as a major creative force, in Québec and abroad. He is experienced and innovative on both saxophone and flute, and his unique writing style cannot be mistaken for anyone else's. Sensitive and powerful, his music often features a funny strike that makes its complex nature more inviting.

Ever since Nébu (one of Québec's first avant-garde jazz groups) in the early '70s, Derome has been consistently renewing and diversifying his approach of composition. He impressed audience and critics first with the flute, then with the saxophone, as a lead character in the musique actuelle underground. He took part to the various artists' collectives looking for new ways to express themselves freely, without esthetic or social constraints, including the Ensemble de musique improvisée de Montréal. Later, in the early '80s, he co-founded Ambiances Magnétiques, a collective and record label that raised his profile at home and introduced his name to the outside world. Among his numerous projects, let us mention the duos Les Granules, Nous perçons les oreilles and Plinc! Plonc!, the dynamic group Jean Derome et les Dangereux Zhoms, and the large-scale projects Confitures de gagaku, Je me souviens - Hommage à Georges Perec and Canot-camping. Most of these projects are based on a unique form of synergy between composition, structured improvisation and genuine creative madness, all this articulated with unmatched playfulness. In 1992, Derome became the second artist to be presented with the Freddie Stone Award (bassist Lisle Ellis was the first).

Besides improvising on a regular basis with Ambiances Magnétiques' members and appearing in their projects, Derome has also shared the stage with several musicians of international stature, among others Fred Frith, Lars Hollmer, Louis Sclavis and Han Bennink. He performs regularly all over Canada, in the US and in Europe. He received a Prix Opus in 2001 for his exposure abroad.

Lately, jazz circles have been praising his undisputable qualities as a jazzman, thanks to the Thelonious Monk tribute project Évidence, the Normand Guilbeault Ensemble (whose Mingus Erectus CD is devoted to Charles Mingus' music), and the much-lauded Derome Guilbeault Tanguay Trio.

Although Jean Derome writes tirelessly for his own projects, he is much in demand in the fields of film, theatre and dance. A short list of this side of his work would have to include his numerous scores for the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), especially for films by John Walker, Jacques Leduc, Fernand Bélanger and animated films by Pierre Hébert, Michèle Cournoyer and Jean Detheux; his incidental music for Théâtre UBU, Théâtre de Quat'Sous and Théâtre du Nouveau Monde; not forgetting his work with several top choreographers, including Louise Bédard, Andrew de Lotbinière Harwood, Daniel Soulières and Ginette Laurin. Other music ensembles have commissioned works from him, including Tuyo, Bradyworks, the Hard Rubber Orchestra from Vancouver and Fanfare Pourpour. Incidentally, Derome is the musical director of the latter.

Over thirty years of music and 70 record credits later, Jean Derome still has sleeves bursting with tricks."

"Joane Hétu. Born Montréal, Québec, 1958. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (alto saxophone, voice), Author/

It has been more than 30 years now since self-taught composer, vocalist and saxophonist Joane Hétu has been following her own highly distinctive path through the vast territory of creative, contemporary music. From her beginnings with song-based new-rock bands such as Wondeur Brass, Justine and Les Poules, Hétu turned to composition (the evocative triptych comprising Musique d'hiver, Filature and La femme territoire ou 21 fragments d'humus) and improvisation, more often than not combining both within her general approach to music. She has co-directed the Ensemble SuperMusique since its founding in 1998, as well as the weekly series Mercredimusics since 2002. More recently she gave birth to La chorale bruitiste Joker (2012). Joane Hétu was awarded the prestigious Freddie Stone Award in 2006."

"Diane Labrosse. Born Montréal, Québec, 1950. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (sampler, accordion, voice).

Working mainly with electronic samplers, Diane Labrosse has a very personnal approach to sounds, exploring different textures and timbres and creating an abstract but evocative music. She is a regular on several different music scenes and has performed at internationally known festivals of musique actuelle, electronic, avant-garde and improvised music all over the world (Canada, USA, Europe, Japan, Australia).

Her most recent projects take different forms: Endangered Species, a sound and visual installation/performance based on obsolete objects such as rotary dial phones and ticking alarmclocks; Dactylotactiles, performance for 3 typewriters and live video (Sébastien Cliche); Petit Bestiaire, naïve songs for a quintet (texts by Guy Marchamps); Sagesse pratique, a series of miniature pieces based on proverbs and O.V.N.I., a sign language for an improvising orchestra of variable sizes.

As a composer, using conventionnal or graphic scores, she wrote for many different ensembles: Array Music and The Burdocks (Toronto), L'Ensemble SuperMusique and Espaces Sonores Illimités (Montréal), NOW Orchestra and 999 years of Music, (Vancouver). She also wrote for less conventionnal instruments, such as ship horns (Harbour Symphonies), train whistles, air bottles and toy pianos. She worked with director Robert Lepage and co-signed (with percussionist Michel F Côté) the music for two of his plays: La Géométrie des miracles and Zulu Time.

As sound designer, she created music for dance (Louise Bédard, Crystal Pite, Andrew Harwood, Marc Boivin, Deborah Dunn, Catherine Tardif, Harold Rhéaume, Richard Siegal), film (Montréal vu par..., Pendant que les arbres tombent, L'Entrevue, Plan de fuite) and radio (Le Navire Night, Les Décrocheurs d'étoiles) and theatre (Nuit d'orage, Je suis d'un would-be pays, Bliss, 38 Contes shakespiriens...).

She has created multimedia installations for Danish company Tura-ya-moya (in situ performances in an old chalk mine), and Scottish-based Theatre Cryptic (Wall of Secrets in situ installation for 20 speakers) as well as the Centre de Musique Canadienne (a sound garden playing ramdom sound tracks on surround speakers).

In 1980, she founded Productions SuperMémé/SuperMusique with Joane Hétu and Danielle P Roger. She remained Co-Artistic Director of this company presenting many concerts and events of innovative music from 1980 to 2008. With long-time colleagues Hétu and Roger she created the groups Wondeur Brass, Justine, and Les Poules. She collaborated with many musicians such as Jean Derome, Pierre Tanguay, Michel F Côté, Martin Tétreault, Ikue Mori, Philippe Lauzier.

Her discography comprises more than 50 recordings mostly recorded on Montreal based label Ambiances Magnétiques. She has received several grants from Canada Arts Council as well as Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec."

"Danielle Palardy Roger. Born Laval, Québec, 1949. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (drum set, electronic percussion, voice).

Percussionist, composer and improviser Danielle Palardy Roger is for the most part self-taught. Active on the Montréal "musique actuelle" scene since 1980, she co-founded the groups Justine, Wondeur Brass and Les Poules. She also founded Ensemble SuperMusique, a shape-shifting ensemble solely devoted to the performance of new music works and improvisation.

As a percussionist and improviser, her style is unique: she structures rhythm out of time, communicating a strong, complex narrative by accumulating and layering diverse gestures. She toured Canada, Europe and the United States on several occasions and appeared at several prestigious international events and festivals. In the course of her unique and resolutely independent career, she has worked and shared the stage with Alexei Borisov, DB Boyko, Christopher Butterfield, Nicolas Caloia, Paul Cram, Chantal Dumas, Christine Duncan, Lori Freedman, Fred Frith, Joëlle Léandre, Torsten Mueller, Zeena Parkins, Tenko, the VivaVoce choir, and the Quasar saxophone quartet, among others and in addition to her close collaborators from the Ambiances Magnétiques crowd - Derome, Hétu, Labrosse, Tanguay and Tétreault.

Roger's research concerns the integration of improvisation to contemporary music. In that regard, she has worked with composer Marie Pelletier and composed music for the Ensemble Contemporain de Montréal and for Ensemble SuperMusique - the latter a shape shifting ensemble entirely dedicated to improvised music and "musique actuelle." She wrote a Harbour Symphony in 2001 (La grande entente), commissioned by the Musée Pointe-à-Callière in Montréal. Danielle Palardy Roger has made several albums for the Ambiances Magnétiques label, including Tricotage (2000) with French bassist Joëlle Léandre, Bruiducœur, prière des infidèles, an oratorio performed live in Montréal, in June of 2004, Phénix (2008) with the trio Les Poules, and Pas de deux (2008) with British guitarist Fred Frith.

Roger is a versatile artist whose projects have consistently brought her back to text, song and declamation. She has penned a large number of songs for Wondeur Brass and Justine, but also composed a musical tale (L'oreille enflée, 1990), a musical theatre (Candide sur une toupie, 1994) and, most importantly, the solo performance Le voyage en Aphasie Mineure (1998) and the oratorio Bruiducœur, prières des infidèles (2004), two works where an exploding language represents the intense realm of communication, the core of the artist's concerns.

In juxtaposition to her music career, Danielle Palardy Roger is also general manager and artistic director of Productions SuperMusique (PSM) and is a member of the Ambiances Magnétiques label; in addition to being involved in the field of concert music she is president of the Groupe Le Vivier, which is dedicated to the founding of a place of creation, production and presentation of new music in Montréal."

"Quebec City, Québec, 1956: Composer, Performer (drum set, percussion, voice)

A percussionist, composer and inveterate inventor, Pierre Tanguay is one of the most sought-after Montréal musicians on the Quebec scene. Since the beginning of the 80s, he has participated in an impressive number of ensembles, including Jean Derome and the dangereux zhoms, Évidence, Castor et compagnie, the Jean-François Groulx Trio, the ODD (a danse orchestra), Villemure Ô Carré, the Pierre Cartier Ensemble and Projet Riel. Among his collaborators are Jean Derome, Normand Guilbeault, Pierre Langevin, René Lussier, Karen Young, Fred Frith, Michel Donato, Daniel Mille, André Duchesne and Antoine Berthiaume. He is very active in the fileds of medieval and traditional music, jazz and musique actuelle. He is the co-founder of Strada, Midi Tapant, Derome/Tanguay.

He has composed works for dance (Lucie Grégoire, Andrew Harwood, Irène Stamou and Francine Gagné), as well as works for the theatre and film (Allan Booth, Imago and Roberto Ariganello). He regularly tours throughout Canada and Europe."

"Martin Tétreault. Born Saint-Jean-Baptiste-de-Rouville, Québec, 1957. Residence: Montréal, Québec. Composer, Performer (turntable), Artist.

Martin Tétreault is an internationally-renowned sound artist based in Montréal. He is a leading figure in improvisation using turntables, unusual vinyl surfaces and objects. Tétreault's trajectory includes various productions on compact disc and live performances with a range of collaborators: Diane Labrosse, René Lussier, Érik M, Michel F Côté, i8u, Otomo Yoshihide, Xavier Charles, Kid Koala, and many more. He is the composer and director of a turntable quartet Quatuor de tourne-disques founded in 2006. His work has appeared under several labels including Ambiances magnétiques, Erstwhile, Japanimprov, Oral, Victo and Vand'œuvre. Commissioned for music, dance, theatre, poetry and installation, Tétreault has been the recipient of many grants and awards."