Anthony Rozankovic : Origami Louise Bessette

• Anthony Rozankovic (b. 1962):
• 1 Rozankovic: Andalouse Running Shoes 03:53
• 2 Rozankovic: Origami 03:22
• 3 Rozankovic: Avenue Zéro 06:17
• 4 Rozankovic: Mosaïque thérianthropique 03:15
• 5 Rozankovic: Providence 03:28
• 6 Rozankovic: La Jungle jongle 09:24
• 7 Rozankovic: Errance 03:28
• 8 Rozankovic: Last Call 03:57
• 9 Rozankovic: Me and Mr. Morley 03:21
• 10 Rozankovic: Pier 21 04:20
• 11 Rozankovic: Et si ? 03:32
• 12 Rozankovic: Pigeon in the sky 03:33
• 13 Rozankovic: Canada by Night 03:53
• 14 Rozankovic: La Vie en rouge 05:25
• 15 Rozankovic: Dead End 05:39
• 16 Rozankovic: Le p’tit gars de Sainte-Marie 05:06
• 17 Rozankovic: Pigeon Biset 10:32
• Total Runtime 01:22:25

Info for Anthony Rozankovic : Origami

With her latest recording, Origami, pianist Louise Bessette unveils a few pages from the musical journal of Montréal composer Anthony Rozankovic. His “origami music” or “score sculptures” are alternately dissonant, syncopated, consonant, lyrical, or chaotic – according to film producer Carl Leblanc, author of the album’s liner notes. 11 of the 16 pieces on Origami started out as film music, with the composer conveying intense emotions. Among the other works are four concert pieces.

Here are a few pages from the musical journal, 1995 to 2022, of Montréal composer Anthony Rozankovic. He has folded, unfolded and refolded his music paper. We compose with life; he lives to compose. His “origami music,” his “score sculptures,” are sometimes dissonant, other times syncopated, consonant, lyrical or chaotic. What’s important is to “accept the multitudes within us.” And that’s what he will do, starting in 1995, taking Stravinsky literally: “To hell with the past!” The composer freed himself from the prison of the academy and dared to express the impudence of emotion. Dared tell sound stories. Allowed himself the pleasure of melody. That decision would produce Origami, music that shakes the roots through its power to move. No one else than the superb pianist Louise Bessette, who has a similar wide reach, could take on his eclectic side and give it a coherence both sublime and unified.

Eleven of the seventeen pieces of this album started out as film music, with the composer narrating emotions of great intensity, from the fate of migrants (Errance) to the creation of a greeting card in the form of a paper bouquet in Auschwitz (Origami). Among the other works are four concert pieces, including Mosaïque thérianthropique and La Jungle jongle composed for Louise Bessette. Fans of avant-garde music and those who prefer penetrating melodies will find nourishment in this great voyage through History (Et si? and Canada by Night) and stories both (Origami, Pier 21, Andalouse Running Shoes). Most of these works had different arrangements and orchestrations, but in the solitude of the piano, they speak more eloquently of our human condition, our aloneness, that little music inside us that, here, bursts forward in the work of this gifted pianist.

Hope, concern, lightness, drama, stochastic reverie, romantic dreaming, the sublime progression of notes, sometimes in vigorous statements, whispered emotions, a confession of sentiment and, as always, we put our life on stage: was this music composed just for me? Both musical journal and the confidences of a piano, in Louise Bessette Origami found its ideal interpreter, for she too is perfectly suited to engage in that essential human activity: telling a story.

Louise Bessette, piano

Louise Bessette
A versatile musician and a piano wizard, Louise Bessette is much in demand as a concert artist in Europe, America, and Asia. Numerous organizations and international competitions have seen 昀椀t to reward her talent, and her reviews are constantly laudatory. She has recorded a wide variety of repertoire both as a soloist and with chamber ensembles, appearing the world over with distinguished orchestras and by invitation to 昀椀rst-rate festivals. Many composers write especially for her. In 2019, Louise Bessette received the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award, Lifetime Artistic Achievement Award for Classical Music. The GGPAA are Canada’s highest honour in the performing arts. In 2016, she was honoured in London, University of Western Ontario, where she received the degree of Doctor of Music, honoris causa, to celebrate her accomplishments as an internationally recognized performer.

As a pianist with an eclectic repertoire, and always eager to promote exchange with other art forms, Louise Bessette recorded works by Alkan and Grieg for a 昀椀lm soundtrack in 2009. “Hidden diary” by French 昀椀lm director Julie Lopes-Curval, starring Catherine Deneuve and Marie-Josée Croze, was presented as world premiere at the Festival des Films du Monde in Montreal (2009), and then in movie theatres all over the world. Louise Bessette received her tenth Opus Prize from Conseil québécois de la musique in 2021. In 2015, she was listed as one of Canada’s top 25 pianists by CBC Music. First Prizes at Eckhardt-Gramatté National Music Competition (1981), Concours International de Musique Contemporaine (Saint-Germain-en-Laye, 1986), International Gaudeamus Competition (Rotterdam, 1989), Femme de l’Année at Salon de la Femme de Montréal (Arts category, 1989), Prix Québec-Flandre (1991), Member of the Order of Canada (2001), Of昀椀cier de l’Ordre national du Québec (2005), Canadian Music Centre Ambassador (2009), Louise Bessette has been a professor of piano at the Conservatoire de musique de Montréal since 1996.

François Dompierre
is a writer, presenter, rambler, and baker; but 昀椀rst and foremost he is a composer and improviser. He began his career as an author-composer-performer and soon became an orchestrator, collaborating with Félix Leclerc, for whom he produced 昀椀ve albums, including Le Tour de l’Ile, and several other Québécois artists. Dompierre, a recording of his own compositions released in 1975, became a popular success. He composed scores for 昀椀lms directed by Jacques Godbout, Denys Arcand, Michel Brault, Claude Fournier, Francis Mankiewicz, Alain Chartrand, Denise Filiatrault, Claude Miller, André Melançon, Jean Beaudin, Claude Chabrol, and Léa Pool. As well as the music for Demain matin, Montréal m’attend, a musical comedy with text by Michel Tremblay, Dompierre has also written major concert works; a violin concerto; two piano concertos; the music for Les Glorieux, a piece honoring hockey players; and Vingt-quatre Préludes, recorded on the Analekta label by pianist Alain Lefèvre. In 2016, he wrote Concertango Grosso for pianist Louise Bessette (ATMA Classique 2016). His Fantaisie pour piano fantôme et orchestre was performed as an introduction to the Concours musical international de Montréal (2017). He composed Par quatre chemins for the New Orford String Quartet (ATMA Classique 2018). The album Phonèmes was recorded in Montreal’s Maison symphonique under the direction of the young orchestra conductor Francis Choinière and with Louise Bessette at the piano. (Classiques GFN 2022). François Dompierre is the author of two food books, published by Boréal; and of two biographies, published by Éditions La Presse: Monique Leyrac, le roman d’une vie (2019), and his autobiography, François Dompierre, Amours, délices et orgues. Récits d’une vie plurielle (2021). For 12 years he was a host on Radio-Canada’s ICI Musique. In 2019, the song L’âme à la tendresse, for which he wrote the music, was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame. François Dompierre has received in 2016 the Tribute Award at the Gala du cinéma québécois of Québec Cinéma and he was a guest of honor at Montreal’s Cinemania Film Festival (2022). He is a Chevalier de l’Ordre de la Pléiade (2006), a Chevalier de l’Ordre national du Québec (2014), and a Member of the Order of Canada (2014).

Booklet for Anthony Rozankovic : Origami