Novarumoni: Angel & Vestiges

Innovations en concert presents Maxim Shalygin’s “Angel” and Olivier Alary’s “Vestiges” – meditations between past and present reimagining musical traditions for a complex, uncertain era.

Maxim Shalygin’s “Angel” (2020) is a reflection born from the global upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic. Composed during – and preceding – a time of widespread trauma, it questions humanity’s relationship with nature and the fragility of existence.

Ukrainian-Dutch composer Maxim Shalygin has established himself as a significant voice in contemporary classical music. He moved to the Netherlands in 2010, where he has since composed numerous works including chamber, vocal, symphonic, and electroacoustic music, as well as scores for theatre, ballet, and film. Violinist Adrianne Munden-Dixon and cellist Audreanne Filion will perform the Quebec premiere of this poignant work.

Vestiges is a haunting, immersive sonic meditation by Montreal-based composer Olivier Alary. Scored for twelve amplified lap steel guitars and electronic diffusion, the 42-minute work is the culmination of over a decade of artistic inquiry. Hovering between memory and oblivion, it evokes a spectral vocality—a ghostly choir of echoes and reverberations.

Each guitar, played using extended and unconventional techniques, becomes a conduit for fragments of sound, like traces of forgotten voices. Emotionally charged and ephemeral, they resurface like memories half-remembered. Drawing on the structural principles of madrigals, Orthodox liturgy, Gaelic psalmody, and chorales, Alary constructs a sonic architecture rooted in the past while resisting nostalgia, in an unmistakably contemporary sonic landscape rich with spectral shimmer and spatial nuance.

Born in France and based in Montreal, Olivier Alary is a versatile composer whose work spans albums, film scores, dance, and sound installations. With formal training in architecture, sound arts, and instrumental composition, he crafts music that dissolves the boundaries between experimental, popular, and contemporary forms. His practice integrates acoustic and electronic elements into dense, emotionally resonant sound worlds shaped by influences ranging from noise and baroque to post-minimalism. Alary has collaborated with artists such as Björk, Nick Knight, Cat Power, and Doug Aitken, and has released work on labels including Rephlex, Fatcat Records, 130701, and LINE. He has also composed the music for over fifty films, many of which have been recognized at major festivals including Cannes, Sundance, and Venice.

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Ticket price: $20 at the door