ARCH MONTREAL : the summary of a first week of artistic meetings

Three artists from Montreal have came in Brest to meet three of Nautilis’s musicians with who they created new bounds, crossed their practices, explored common artistic territories.

During the last year, the Nautilis Ensemble and the association Penn Ar Jazz, creators of the ARCH, an international exchanges program, built differents contacts and bounds in the musical scene of Montreal with the idea to meet new artists. They first met Peter Burton, artistic director of the festival Suoni Per Il Popolo. Thanks to him, the Nautilis’s musicians managed to meet Jason Sharp and Geneviève Gauthier, both saxophon players, and the dancer and singer Suzanna Hood.

The first meeting between all those musicians took place in Brest during the festival « Montreal Maintenant ! » organised by Penn Ar Jazz, between the 10 and le 14th of april.

During thoose days, the musicians spent severals days in residency in a way to learn how to work with each other, to know which axes would be dig and then give concerts in different places around the Guerin place.

Thuesday 10th : the canadians arrive, Penn Ar Jazz and Nautilis welcome them.

Wenesday 11th : visit of all the places where the concerts will take place, then a first working time. Jason Sharp, Geneviève Gauthier, Frédéric B.Briet and Christophe Rocher give a concert in the brewery « L’Urbaine », an atypical place where thirty people came to enjoy the music, the beers and the spring weather.

Thursday 12th : second day of residency. The morning is only about work, and at noon the artists welcome students to speack about how they create and work on their musics.

The afternoon is dedicated once again to work only between artists. In the evening, Suzanna Hood and Nicolas Pointard give a concert at the bar « le Mouton à Cinq Pattes ».

Friday 13th : the residency migrates to a college where the artists start to work until they meet few classes of pupils, in front of who they give a concerts and then explain how they build and imagine their work as artists.

The day ends on a concert of Suzanna, Jason and Geneviève in the recordshop « Bad Seeds »

Saturday 14th : the day will take place in the art center of « Passerelle ». Three different shows in different spaces and rooms of the art center. A first session set up around the piece of art of Uliel Saldanha « Vocoder & camouflage : tactics of Decay », a gigantik pile of bushes and leaves suspended on the ceiling, floating in an artificial fog with colored lights. The artists gave a concert of drone music, suprising, extended which put the public into a dreamy atmosphere.

The second concerts session take the shape of a walk in the all building : the artists are exploded in different spaces by two, leading the public through the rooms by the sound. Thus, the public is set on a spot for 15 minutes in front of a first duo (Nicolas Pointard and Geneviève Gauthier) then the second duo ( Jason Sharp and Frédéric B.Briet) begins his concert while the first one is ending, encourges people to move on toward the sound. And a last concert begins in an other room (Christophe Rocher and Suzanna Hood), making move the public again.

The day ends with a final concert in the very center of Passerelle.

Three unique sessions followed by a little crowd delighted by the music, very different for each concert.

After this week, the artists and Penn Ar Jazz took a time to think how things have been done, what worked, what didn’t work and how they can imagine the future of the ARCH together. The outcome of thoose few days is really good and very encouraging : everybody managed to find a place to express his own vision of the thing, his own voice, and managed to share it with the other artists. Exchanges have been so succesfull, rich and very dense. From the first day, a work methodology has been found quiet easily therewith each musician find his own voice in this surprising sextet. The outlooks are multiple, everybody has in mind to meet again, in Brest or Montreal, to work on a band or severals bands, and meet new territories.

Everything needs to be thought, imagined, and built.