JUNO Award nominee for Classical Composition of the Year, 2016: Bookburners

Top 15 New Classical of 2014: Stephen J Nereffid

« Lizées’s Hitchcock Preludes » is a magnificent collision in which soundtrack snippets are repurposed in startling ways. » Stephen J Nereffid, Musicisgood.org

EXCLUSIVE: Centrediscs released a limited-edition vinyl album of Bookburners with 15 remixes by composer Nicole Lizée based on the five tracks from the Bookburners album.  The vinyl release is available HERE.

Bookburners comprises a collection of Nicole Lizée’s works from the past five years picking up where 2008’s This Will Not Be Televised left off. Bookburners presents a number of Lizée’s fixations and obsessions that have infiltrated the five pieces on the album: a reinterpretation of rave culture, John Cage, Hitchcock, witchhouse meets classical, turntablism, iconography, meticulously notated glitch, auteur theory, voyeurism, malfunction, psychopaths, phantoms, backmasking, crate digging, grave digging and a sonic depiction of the imagination of graphic designer Saul Bass – and their melding with classical, concert, notated music. The record features an all-star cast of stellar musicians from across Canada and the U.S., among which include New York City’s So Percussion, turntablist DJ P-Love, drummer Ben Reimer, and cellist Stéphane Tétreault.

Montreal based composer Nicole Lizée creates new music from an eclectic mix of influences including the earliest MTV videos, turntablism, rave culture, glitch, Hitchcock, Kubrick, and 1960s psychedelia. She is fascinated by the errors made by outmoded and well-worn technology and captures these glitches, notates them and integrates them into live performance.

In 2001 Lizée received a Master of Music degree from McGill University. After a decade and a half of composition, her commission list of over 40 works is varied and distinguished, and includes the Kronos Quartet, BBC Proms, l’Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, CBC, New York City’s Kaufman Center, San Francisco Symphony, So Percussion, Eve Egoyan, Australian Art Orchestra, Fondation Arte Musica, Gryphon Trio and the SMCQ. Her music has been performed worldwide in renowned venues including Carnegie Hall (NYC), Royal Albert Hall (London), Muziekgebouw (Amsterdam) and Cité de la Musique (Paris) – and in major festivals including the BBC Proms (UK), Huddersfield (UK), Bang On a Can (USA), and All Tomorrow’s Parties (UK).

Lizée was awarded the prestigious 2013 Canada Council for the Arts Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. She is a Civitella Ranieri Foundation Fellow (2010). Her work for piano and notated glitch, Hitchcock Études, was chosen by the International Society for Contemporary Music to be featured at the 2014 World Music Days in Poland. Additional awards and nominations include a Prix Opus (2013), two Prix collégien de musique contemporaine (2012, 2013), the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers’ Top 10 List (2008) and the 2002 Canada Council for the Arts Robert Fleming Prize for achievements in composition.

Track List:

DVD 1

1. Hitchcock Études 20:48
Megumi Masaki, piano
Saul Bass 2:32
Doris Day 3:39
Stutter 3:03
The Party 2:23
Schoolhouse 4:00
Phonograph 1:31
Shower 3:32

2. Bookburners 14:34
Stéphane Tétreault, cello
Paolo Kapunan [DJ P-Love], turntables

CD 2

1. White Label Experiment 13:56
SO Percussion
Nicole Lizée, turntables

2. Ouijist 13:41
Mark Takeshi McGregor, alto flute
Ben Reimer, percussion
Rebecca Whitling, violin and omnichord
Mark Haney, double bass
Nicole Lizée, spectres

3. Son of the Man With the Golden Arms 18:20
Architek Percussion
Ben Reimer, drum kit
Steve Raegele & Jonathan Barriault, guitar

TT81:19

REVIEWS:

« [Lizée] is an original, both lyrical and disembodied, innovative in her minimalist deconstruction, thoroughly a voice of today. An original voice in full-flower, in fact. Highly recommended music. »– Grego Applegate Edwards, Gapplegate

This recording generously supported by:


This project is funded in part by FACTOR, the Government of Canada and Canada’s private radio broadcasters. / Ce projet est financé en partie par FACTOR, le gouvernement du Canada et les radiodiffuseurs privés du Canada.