L’ivresse de la vitesse has been performed in Arras, London, Malmö, Montpellier, Montréal, Nîmes and Toronto…

The title L’ivresse de la vitesse (Intoxication by Speed) is an allusion towards my current artistic intentions which involve the speeding up of an excess of musical ideas so that the composition and its materials exhaust themselves in the shortest time possible. The intoxicating aspect of speed is evoked by using primarily fast tempo markings and rapid changes in orchestration, density and dynamics. These elements can be particularly sped up to the point of exhaustion and intoxication in the digital audio studio which is limitless or ‘virtual’ in its colour and density possibilities.

To increase the sensation of exhaustion and intoxication, hundreds of musical parts occur simultaneously that are organized by numerous musical systems which unfold concurrently. A few of these musical systems originate in different styles of popular music. These musical styles are organized by an overall compositional language and style in order to diffuse their direct effect or reference point, and to create an internally coherent music. This overall compositional language is intended to make the different musical styles and compositional systems implode inwards, creating new identities beyond their worn-out historical reference points, and to produce what I hope is like seduction: undeniably attractive and yet simultaneously unexplainable. Indeed any work that is totally complicit in its own absorption, so that it no longer makes apparent sense on the surface, will exercise a remarkable fascination. In short, an art work fascinates by its esotericism which preserves it from external logic.

L’ivresse de la vitesse was realized in the composer’s studio with assistamce from the Canada Council for the Arts (CCA) and in particular from a Media Arts Audio Production Grant. It was premiered on May 28, 1994 at the 3rd Annual Festival of Experimental Music organized by the London Musicians’ Collective (UK). L’ivresse de la vitesse was awarded the 2nd prize at the 3rd Prix international Noroit-Léonce Petitot (Arras, France, 1994); the 1st prize in the Musica Nova 1994 International Competition of Electroacoustic Music (Prague, Czech Republic); the 1st Mention in the Stockholm Electronic Arts Award (Sweden, 1995); and the Jean A Chalmers Award for Musical Composition (Toronto, Canada, 1995).