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What happens when you ‘pop the CLOrk’?

THIS WEEK: Concordia Laptop Orchestra takes to the stage with Ariane Moffatt for Quebec's 2016 Journées de la culture
September 27, 2016
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By S. Baker


CLOrk’s collaboration with Ariane Moffatt is their first with a live singer. | Photo courtesy of the artist CLOrk’s collaboration with Ariane Moffatt is their first with a live singer. | Photo courtesy of the artist


You might know Quebec pop singer Ariane Moffatt from such hits as “Debout” or “Miami.” Now, the 37-year-old chanteuse is preparing for something a little more experimental — a live collaboration with the Concordia Laptop Orchestra (CLOrk).

On September 30, during the 20th annual Journées de la culture festival, Moffatt and the members of CLOrk will take to the stage at the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal (MAC), for three 30-minute live performances beginning at 6 p.m.

Eldad Tsabary, assistant professor in the Department of Music, is the founder/director of CLOrk, which is made up of 20 past and present students from his “EAST 363 – Concordia Laptop Orchestra” course.

He says the festival’s organizers from Culture pour tous invited the group to take part in the festival because they really liked its experimental, collaborative model.

“To perform with computers as a collective, as an orchestra, is something that has most prominently evolved over the last decade or so,” he points out. “What’s cool and interesting and also challenging is that there’s no standard way of doing it. The nature of the orchestra is to be innovative.”
 

CLOrk director, Eldad Tsabary: “Pushing the orchestra to new places.” | Photo courtesy of CLOrk 	CLOrk director, Eldad Tsabary: “Pushing the orchestra to new places.” | Photo courtesy of CLOrk


Beyond improv

CLOrk has performed both physically and virtually with symphonic, jazz, chamber and laptop orchestras worldwide, and collaborated with dancers and video artists. Most often, the collaborations are improvised. This marks the first time the group will be working with a singer during a live show, and performing music that includes standard chord progressions.

Three of Moffatt’s songs will guide the structure of the sets with improvised arrangements stringing everything together. The group will be joined by a clarinettist, double bassist and three video artists, while the lighting will be controlled by a member of the orchestra through hand gestures.

“It’s going to require another kind of attention and focus that’s outside of our comfort zone, which is good,” Tsabary says. “We need to constantly test and push ourselves to new places and see what kind of creative thoughts and solutions develop.”


‘It’s about having the skills to adapt’

As Tsabary points out, this idea of constructing new musical situations, or problems, and finding creative ways to perform and improvise within them is what the orchestra is really all about.

“It’s the essence of the educational element,” he says, adding that such performances help students to develop skills that will be useful if they want to pursue a career in music.

“Now, music is about learning a lot of multidisciplinary things – sound production, sound for film and sound design, for example. It’s about having the skills to adapt and learn quickly as the technology develops.”


CLOrk will perform three half-hour sets with Ariane Moffatt during the
20th annual Journées de la culture festival. The show begins at 6 p.m. on Friday, September 30, at the Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal (185 Ste-Catherine W.)

Find out more about Concordia’s Department of Music.

 



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