A tribute to the exceptional young generation of 2012.

“Two hundred and fifty thousand people, that’s not a springtime matter, that’s a people’s matter, a world matter.”

— Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois

My music started to gain a political colour in 2012, in reaction to human aberrations, after I produced a soundtrack for the Amnesty International event 10 ans de Guantanamo, 10 heures de prise de parole. Tout en rouge is music concerned with social, political, and environmental realities. Protest acousmatics!

March 22, 2012. An exceptional day, unseasonably warm, incredibly sunny. April 22: bells are ringing across the island. A breath of fresh air is stoking passions. Contrast! Fierce battles rage in the streets of Montréal and all over Québec, turning our soil into a nation. Spring comes in early this year… It is the “Maple Spring” that would gain momentum month after month. Young community leaders are taking up the torch in the name of equality. Finally, a relief force! They are here, now, women and men who are ready to change the world for future years. It reminds me of the Saint-Jean-Baptiste (Québec’s national holiday) on the mountain in 1975, René Lévesque… Our childrens’ generation, the one that replaces our generation from 30 or 40 years ago. We were losing hope to find anew a life filled with engagement, debates and struggles for social justice, the end of corruption, the end of shale gas development…

Tout en rouge is made of field recordings made during the 2012 demonstrations, plus a few archives around the “Maple Spring” social crisis and ongoing struggles that remain current to this day… I remember everything in red. And you?

— Roxanne Turcotte [English translation: François Couture, iv-14]

Tout en rouge [Everything in Red] was realized in 2012-14 at the composer’s studio (Studio Séducson) in Montréal, and was broadcasted on web radio and through various social media after the events of Spring 2012. A special thanks to René Gour for the radio broadcast (CIBL FM), to François Doyon for snippets of guitar, and to Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois for authorizing the use of his audio quote.

Premiere

• October 24, 2015, L’Espace du son 2015: Roxanne Turcotte, Théâtre Marni, Brussels (Belgium)