In January 2019, young students at the Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur school in Montréal took part in a brainstorming exercise to imagine fantastical machines following this theme: “Four Machines to Save the World.” No limits, no other directives, no bad ideas. This piece was composed from their suggestions. It translates into sounds and music the contraptions they came up with and the environment they would evolve in.

The work is divided into four sections with subtitles that match the original titles provided by the students:

1. A flying machine that works on pollution and transforms it into clean air
2. A robot-machine shaped like an animal to save animals that have no home and live in the streets
3. A machine to send all the snow that falls here to the North Pole so that it stops melting
4. A boat-submarine-machine to clean the oceans

— Léa Boudreau [English translation: François Couture, iv-23]

Quatre machines pour sauver le monde [Four Machines to Save the World] was realized in 2019 at the composer’s studio in Montréal and premiered on April 30, 2019 as part of the Ultrasons festival at Salle Claude-Champagne of the Université de Montréal (Québec). Thank you to Samuel Cadieux et his young students at the Jean-Baptiste-Meilleur elementary school in Montréal for their participation and ideas. Quatre machines pour sauver le monde won 3rd prize at the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC)’s competition Jeu de temps / Times Play (JTTP) (Canada, 2019).

Premiere

• April 30, 2019, Ultrasons — L’élite numérique 1, Salle Claude-Champagne — Université de Montréal, Montréal (Québec)

Awards

• 3rd prize, Jeu de temps / Times Play (JTTP) 2019, Canada
• Special Mention, Ars Electronica Forum Wallis 2020, Leuk (Switzerland)