
Sofie
Birch
Program 6
Photo: Natasha Post Penaguiao
PHI Centre
Salle d'écoute
407 Saint-Paul St
Montreal, Quebec, H2Y 2M3
Monday and Tuesday:
Closed
Wednesday to Sunday:
12 PM to 7 PM (last entry at 6 PM)
Duration: Approximately 60 min.
All ages
General admission: $12.50
Price including service fees, excluding taxes
Before visiting, please review some essential information about the visit, including details on accessibility at the Centre.
To plan a school, community or corporate visit, go to our Group Visits page.
Tune out the everyday noise and lose yourself in Montréal’s new immersive listening room.
The experience inside the listening room is in constant evolution. Please check back regularly to discover newly added artists and more time slot availability.
Coming September 27 → Akousma festival
Program 6
Photo: Natasha Post Penaguiao
Program 5
Program 5
Program 5
Program 5
MUSICAL COMPOSITION IN SPATIAL AUDIO
Duration: 60'
August 23 - September 24
Wednesday, Friday & Sunday:
12 PM, 3 PM, 6 PM
Thursday and Saturday:
1:30 PM, 4:30 PM
September 27 - October 20
Wednesday & Friday:
12 PM, 3 PM, 6 PM
Thursday:
1:30 PM, 4:30 PM
Combining acoustic music, nature sounds and the latest technologies in sound spatialization, Quatre invites us to encounter nature in a different way and to recreate a link with the precious. Created throughout the year 2021, the work is a tribute to the cycle of the Quebec seasons. Each movement is a series of tableaux, where the music sketches nature in constant transformation. The musicians, inhabited by distant musical languages, bring a new sound to this world. An old film that was thought to be forgotten, but which comes back more vibrant than ever.
Musical direction, compositions and double bass: Christophe Papadimitriou
Accordion and marimba: Luzio Altobelli
Viola, oud and nay: Omar Abou Afach
Sound design: Florian Grond
Christophe Papadimitriou wishes to thank the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec for its support.
Photo: Laurence Dompierre-Major
MUSICAL COMPOSITION IN SPATIAL AUDIO
Duration: 40'
August 23 - September 24
Wednesday, Friday & Sunday:
1:30 PM, 4:30 PM
Thursday and Saturday:
12 PM, 3 PM, 6 PM
September 27 - October 20
Wednesday & Friday:
1:30 PM, 4:30 PM
Thursday:
12 PM, 3 PM, 6 PM
"Lolupupi Kutiku is a land of invisible forests of crackling plants, humid melodies and curling flowers that lull you into a mysterious silk trance.
Asking 'Who are you? Where are you going? What’s in front of you if you listen?' The work combines nature recordings, synths, and sound therapeutic instruments distributed through Habitat Sonore’s speakers, and is an experiment to create contemplative space that embalms the busy spirit."
—Sofie Birch
Immersive mix: Sofie Birch et Phil Rochefort at the PHI Centre Recording Studio
Photos: Natasha Post Penaguiao
For 4 weekends, our listening room will be captivated by programs specially designed for Habitat Sonore by the artistic director of the Akousma festival of immersive digital music. The perfect way to celebrate the 75th anniversary of musique concrète!
We invite you to explore the artists taking part in these programs. From September 30 to October 22, on weekends only, Habitat Sonore will be the setting for some exciting creations you won't want to miss!
Program 1
Program 1
Photo: Milan Maracek
Program 1
Program 1
Program 1
Program 2
Photo: Peter Grant
Program 2
Program 2
Photo: Louis Cummins
Program 2
Photo: Caroline Campeau
Program 2
Photo: Martine Doyon
Program 3
Photo: Tony Rinaldo
Program 3
Photo: Amalia Young
Program 3
Photo: Janeath
Program 3
Photo: Monique Bertrand
Program 3
Photo: Kyrre Lien
Program 4
Photo: Julia Jones
Program 4
Program 4
Photo: Carlo Carnivali
Program 4
Photo: Valérian Mazataud
Program 4
Duration: 11'30
Excerpt from Cathédrales, an acousmatic journey, conceived for a dome of loudspeakers, that presents sound immersion as a “montrage” (from the French montrer and montage) for the ear, inspired by the physical and sonic presence of churches in Montréal.
Photo: Milan Maracek
Duration: 13'42
About Strings is based on two trivial spacetimes: the recordings of the different strings, slowly, of two strange instruments: a laboratory "monochord" and a ukelin (the mix of a violin and a ukulele), for sampling purposes. These sound recordings serve as a guideline for the piece and are kept whole, with their faults, their sudden movements and their roughness.
Duration: 9'14
The title of this piece refers to the cyclical and repetitive song of the Acheta domesticus, better-known as the house cricket. Its song served as a model for the construction of the piece.
Duration: 14'02
Following the Climat avenir cycle published in 2021, Reservoir IV pursues a representation of nature through synthetic music. In this perspective, the Sound Habitat of the PHI Center is considered as a reservoir where water collides with walls, deposited on the outskirts of an unknown territory.
Duration: 17'51
Composed, mixed and mastered by Francisco López at ‘mobile messor’ (The Hague) and Dune Studio (Loosduinen), 2020. Includes some electronic voice phenomena (EVP) samples by Michael Esposito.
Duration: 7'40
In a postnuclear setting where all trace of human life has vanished, crushed remnants emerge from the layers of sand and stone, and the fragments of memory burst through the shadow mouths forming, singing, shutting up, screaming.
Duration: 8'09
This electronic poem is in four parts: Le cadran déchu (The Deposed Dial); L’obsession (The Obsession); La va-et-vient (To and Fro); L’horloge ambulante (The Walking Clock). I have an uneasy relationship with time… Present, past, and future times. – With the voices of Laur Fugère, Céline Bonnier and Pierre Lebeau.
Photo: Martine Doyon
Duration: 12'50
Winner of the Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux prize at the first edition of Montréal international competition of immersive multichannel music AKOUSMAtique (2022).
A playful piece that explores the boundaries between rhythm, pitch, texture, and space. The work is inspired by the rhythmic figure of the rebound, a recurrent figure in electroacoustic music, characterized by the repetition of an element at a progressively increasing speed. The goal is to create sound choreographies, exploring sound spatialization possibilities.
Photo: Louis Cummins
Duration: 14'02
Following the Climat avenir cycle published in 2021, Reservoir IV pursues a representation of nature through synthetic music. In this perspective, the Sound Habitat of the PHI Center is considered as a reservoir where water collides with walls, deposited on the outskirts of an unknown territory.
Photo: Peter Grant
Duration: 14'42
Melancholia has eight movements: black humour, nostalgia, anguish, boredom, reverie, anger, exhaustion, sadness. The only sound material of the piece comes from the bandoneon, a typical instrument of Argentine tango.
Photo: Caroline Campeau
Duration: 18'30
This composition takes us on a path inside. Fragments of dreams and memories meet in a vast space full of dynamic movements. We fly, swim, dive in an unknown medium between air and liquid. In three slow, big waves, individual voices become more apparent and offer connecting points between the other elements.
Photo: Tony Rinaldo
Duration: 10'11
Winner of the Francis-Dhomont prize at the first edition of Montréal international competition of immersive multichannel music AKOUSMAtique (2022).
Le chant en dehors creates an atmosphere of evolving connection between sonorities of definite and indefinite pitch, or ‘tone’ and ‘noise.’ The title is taken from an instruction used by the French composer Francis Poulenc, meaning ‘bring out the tune.’
Photo: Amalia Young
Duration: 12'00
Dusk's Gait celebrates moments of real nature that may easily expire. The composition captures many late evenings and nighttime experiences of nature, and fantasies behind the veil of darkness.
Photo: Kyrre Lien
Duration: 10'57
The multitrack considered as if it was delimiting a physical place — a public square, empty — but radiating and vibrating with the rumor of the multitude of singularities that were still there not long ago. An intertwining of lines and occasional agglomerations that come together and come apart. The sound materials were made on Oboro's modular synthesizers.
Photo: Monique Bertrand
Duration: 11'06
This work bases itself on the engineering, the mechanics, the forces and physical energies underlying the operation of roller coasters. Circuits of long serpentine paths are triggered by a single initial state, the origin of unfolding activity that replenishes and renews itself within itself.
Photo: Janeath
Duration: 14'15
I have always heard bird songs as the Earth’s sonic flowers, the first terrestrial melodies, but also as oscillators with complex modulations. After testing a few transformations, I felt like I had at my disposal the tools that would allow me to twist, transpose, and explode them into other materials in order to create new bird species.
Photo: Julia Jones
Duration: 15'12
As I run all year around on Mont-Royal, spring is a special time when all things come to life. I feel very lucky to witness the changes through the seasons. This is simply a meditation on the wonderful life cycle that keeps repeating.
Duration: 11'12
One of the main sound-producing mechanisms in the piece is a vacuum cleaner. The airflow travels from the motor through the suction hose and telescopic tube to the end nozzle. The excitation signal is produced by various membranes and other probs vibrating at the end of the suction tube. Sound from there is then modulated following the Fab Synthesis paradigm, a sound synthesis practice I used throughout the piece.
Duration: 7'56
I composed this set of three movements during May of 1974, when I had been studying computers for nearly a year. At that time, I had a research fellowship from the Institute for Studies in American Music, and was studying American music with H. Wiley Hitchcock. While composed under the influence of the rhythms, modes, and energies of that music, these pieces are probably best placed in that large category of composed music which distorts or alters more than it embodies folk material. Still, as with much of my music, both my earlier folk music roots and the practice of improvisation make the piece what it is.
Duration: 11'37
Based on field recordings, this piece is inspired by a collection of meaningful moments experienced during my many hikes on Monts Valin, located in Saguenay. It was composed on the octophonic system of the Chicoutimi Musical Experimentation Center during a residency and mentoring activity (Achicoutimatique) and premiered at the same place on August 12, 2021.
Photo: Valérian Mazataud
Habitat Sonore offers a new way of appreciating the local and international musical landscape by proposing a different kind of auditory experience beyond stereo listening.
The albums and soundscapes proposed in Habitat Sonore are the result of a thorough reflection from the artists on how their work should be presented and experienced.
Tune out the everyday noise and lose yourself in Montréal’s new immersive listening room.
Habitat Sonore is an invitation to sound immersion. PHI welcomes you to an intimate and relaxing environment where you can discover sound in all its forms—from sound baths to short audio films and music albums to chromotherapy. Enjoy a wide variety of poetic, meditative, and performative content.
Habitat Sonore was designed to be as technically flexible as possible, prioritizing the utmost sound quality. The sound system consists of a 16 speaker multichannel array powered by a high-end JBL pre-processor. The space allows the playback of several commercial immersive formats and can also be used as an “instrument” for artists to explore spatialization possibilities. Habitat Sonore is a place that offers multiple creative opportunities for collaboration, mediation, and experimentation.
There are many different ways to experience sound, whether in a communal environment or for individual listening.
Habitat Sonore is a communal space that encourages shared listening with others. Invite your friends and loved ones to experience a riveting piece of sound together.
The space will feature a range of programming across different mediums including: musical albums, performances, sound baths, short audio films, chromotherapy, deep listening, immersive sound, ambisonic music and sound, and more.
Glossary
A sound bath is a deep, immersive, whole-body listening experience that intentionally uses sound to nourish therapeutic and restorative processes of the mind and body.
Chromaesthesia or sound-colour synaesthesia is a type in which sound evokes an experience of colour, shape, and movement.or sound-colour synaesthesia is a type in which sound evokes an experience of colour, shape, and movement.
Deep listening explores the relationships between all sounds, whether natural or technological, intended or unintended, real, remembered or imagined. It's also a state of mind, similar to meditation, that allows for a deep appreciation of a work or sound environment.
A soundscape is the acoustic environment—the sounds we find in the natural environment, amongst flora and fauna, and the unintentional sounds found in man-made environments (technology, machines, cities). It can also refer to the intentional sounds found in music, generally referring to creations in ambient electronic or electroacoustic music.
An "immersive" experience completely envelopes the visitor or participant in another reality, sensory or narrative. In sound, it is a sonic representation of a virtual space.
Off-Site Location
The immersive experience Space Explorers: THE INFINITE, presented in the Old Port, is back in Montreal featuring new captivating content captured in space
Centre
An immersive exhibition that explores the connections between sexuality and technology
Free
Foundation
The PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art is pleased to present a solo exhibition by Moridja Kitenge Banza: Inhabiting the Imaginary
Free
Centre
The PHI Centre showcases a light installation with evolving content, adapting to the seasons and exhibitions
Free
Off-Site Location
Presented at Place des Arts, New Media Pioneers celebrates the work of Michel Lemieux of 4D ART and Édouard Lock
Foundation
In collaboration with Film POP, the PHI Foundation for Contemporary Art presents Fictional Revolutionary Leaders, a double bill including Gloria Camiruaga’s Popsicles (1984) and Beatriz Santiago Muñoz’s Oriana (2022)
Centre
The London-based DJ and singer will get you moving with her grooves celebrating soundsystem music
Centre
The American singer and pianist performs her new album HIGH PRIESTESS