Association de musique actuelle de Québec

Association de musique actuelle de Québec (AMAQ). Non-profit organization founded in June 1978 by Irène Brisson, Claude Brisson, Pierre Genest, Michel Drapeau, Odile Magnan, André Morin, and Gisèle Ricard to promote and disseminate contemporary music from Canada (especially Quebec) and abroad. While giving composers the opportunity to become known, AMAQ also favours the employment of numerous musicians in the region of Quebec City. Between 1978 and 1991 it organized more than 90 concerts, workshops, lectures, and special events not only in Quebec City but also in Baie-St-Paul, Victoriaville, Alma, Montreal, and other regions. In 1981 it introduced the Journé des jeunes compositeurs de Québec which was held annually until 1987. From 1982 to 1985 it supported the AMAQ Quartet (Josée Blackburn, flute, Jean-Marc Leclerc, violin, Lucie Brosseau, viola, and Russell Gagnon, cello), which premiered and propagated works written for it by young Quebec composers.

The varied activities of AMAQ (which also include electroacoustic repertoire) have been presented in concert halls (including the Institut canadien), churches, art galleries, museums, and outdoor sites and by 1991, 390 works by more than 300 composers had been introduced. More than 1000 individuals (musicians, dancers, actors, writers, and artists in the visual arts) participated in these successful events. Among those featured were Alvin Lucier, Mauricio Kagel, Alfons Kontarsky, Hugh McLean, Peter Schuback, John Zorn, the Lontano Ensemble of London, the Groupe de musique expérimentale de Bourges, the Ensemble de musique nouvelle de Belgique and the SMCQ ensemble.

AMAQ has obtained commissions funded by the Canada Council and has premiered many works by composers from Quebec, including Bernard Bonnier, Denys Bouliane, Denis Dion, José Evangelista, Bruno Fecteau, Alain Gagnon, Marc Gagné, Pierre Genest, François Morel, Raymond Skilling, Gisèle Ricard, Armando Santiago, Daniel Toussaint, and André Villeneuve. While from 1985 onwards several of its members regularly hosted broadcasts of new music on CKRL radio (Quebec City), AMAQ also set out, starting in 1985, to establish within the framework of teaching institutions, habits and learning patterns in the field of performance and in the introduction of contemporary music. Thus it organized, in collaboration with the CMQ and the Ste-Foy Cegep, two continuous training courses in new music in 1988 and1989. In 1988 two of its members (Lucie Brosseau, viola, Marc-André Demers, synthesizer) formed the group Sono-Graphe which by 1991, had introduced more than 5000 Quebec pupils to contemporary music.

Author Irène Brisson