Replica has been performed in Belfast, Brussels, Florence, Glasgow, Longueuil, Montréal, New York City, Quebec City, San Francisco, Seoul, Thessaloniki, Toronto and Verdun…

To Suzanne

The Replica project is inspired by the existential opposition between continuity and transformation as comprised in the sentence “Eadem mutata resurgo,” or “I am reborned changed as identical.” The work is built mostly from flute sounds, mainly old recordings of the performer and new materials generated during a first instrumental writing. The replica of these materials in a second writing on support creates various sceneries in which are interpreted on one hand the instrument and its expressive potential and on the other hand the performer and her history.

In Replica, the dichotomic relation between continuity and transformation is made of 4 compositional modalities: contrast between pure instrumental sound and re-built sound; creation of new material on the basis of old recordings; progressive transformation of motives and sound objects based on repetition; and duplication of the instrumental by the electro. On the road towards instrumental utopia, the project took the form of an acousmatic work.

— Martin Bédard, Marie-Hélène Breault [English translation: François Couture, ii-22]

Replica was realized in 2012-13 at the composer’s studio in Montréal (Québec) and was premiered on March 13, 2013 during the concert Espaces mixtes II presented by Erreur de type 27 (E27) at Méduse’s Salle Multi in Québec. It was commissioned by E27 with support from the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ). Replica received a Mention at the Concours biennal de composition acousmatique Métamorphoses (Brussels, Belgium, 2014) and the 3rd prize at the Iannis Xenakis International Electroacoustic Composition Competition (Greece, 2017).