I have a fetish for old machines, decrepit objects, antiques. I record them and construct their sounds into music. As a sound hunter, I offer myself the luxury of working with anything that emits the faintest murmur. The musical instrument nonetheless remains for me the most beautiful of sound objects. Elaborated over several centuries in order to offer tonal perfection, it is a precise instrument. When the Nouvel orchestre d’aujourd’hui (NOA) invited me to create work from samples from their orchestra, I was instantly compelled! This creation is, in some way, a continuation of my electroacoustic research on the sounds of old machines. Having worked extensively with the sound of a typewriter, I succumbed to the temptation to include it as it is part of the orchestra’s instrumentation. I approached the work the same way I do electroacoustic music, using pointillism as well as the direct and percussive gestures of the typewriter. It is a dialogue between typewriter and orchestra. A poetic dialogue between objects of the past.

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Thank you to Nicolas Jodin and Charles-Émile Beullac.

Dédicace aux machines anciennes was created between January 5 and July 18, 2009 in the composer’s studio and at the Banff Centre. The work is a commission from the Nouvel orchestre d’aujourd’hui