With its concerts, its Homage Series, its Montreal/New Music International Festival (MNM), its youth-music programme, radio broadcasts, North American and European tours, a competition for composers, and more than twenty full-length recordings, the work of the SMCQ has resulted in a fertile breeding ground for new works of art, commissions, and masterful performances of contemporary music “classics”.
The Organization Founded in 1966 by a group of prominent Montreal musicians and composers, including Wilfrid Pelletier, Jean Papineau-Couture, Serge Garant and Maryvonne Kendergian, the SMCQ has assumed a mandate since the beginning of its existence to promote contemporary music from both this country and abroad.
Managed by composers for composers, the SMCQ has been led by three different artistic directors to date: composers Serge Garant (1966-89), Gilles Tremblay (1986-88) and Walter Boudreau (since 1988).
The SMCQ was the force behind a number of major artistic events, on its own and in collaboration with a number of leading organizations involved with the creation of new art in Quebec, including the fields of dance (O Vertigo), opera (Chants Libres and l’Opéra de Montréal), “traditional” concert ensembles (The Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, McGill University’s Faculty of Music (Now Schulich School of Music), the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne, the Theatre la Chapelle, the Molinari quartet, and the Orchestre symphonique de Québec to name a few.
The organization has commissioned, premiered and recorded a number of works that are fundamental to the contemporary repertoire, by artists from our own nation and abroad. One unforgettable example is the Symphonie du Millénaire (Symphony of the Millenium), a collective work by nineteen composers performed for over 40,000 persons on the 3rd of June, 2000, at Saint Joseph’s Oratory in Montreal.