duduk / Դուդուկ / Տուտուկ

A glimmer of hope. There is a breath of exasperation and the sound of hot sand under the desert winds of the Middle East and the semidesert landscapes of Armenia. A sweet, enthralling and hopeful melody is leaving traces on golden dunes that are still warm and too often obscured by poverty and war.

The sound that surrounds the dunes is represented by the «song of sand» found on some beaches in the Îles-de-la-Madeleine archipelago. The melody — with interspersed fixed-sound responses and supported by the sand-moving udu — was written for the duduk. This fascinating double-reed instrument appeared 2,000 years ago in Armenia. It is made from apricot wood and produces a unique sound that is very similar to the human voice. The duduk is called balaban in Iran and mey in Türkiye.

This song represents various geopolitical situations and reminds us to never ignore humanitarian catastrophes, like the horrors of the Palestinian genocide, the terrible conflicts and the poverty in Lebanon and Armenia, or the appalling conditions of Afghan and Iranian women who are voiceless and faceless. The insistent udu beat is an illustration of the faded look of the sun’s golden glow on the cooled-down sand of the desert in the evening.

— Roxanne Turcotte [English translation: François Couture, iv-26]

L’heure dorée [The Golden Hour] was realized in 2024 at the composer’s studio (Studio Séducson) in Montréal (Québec) and was premiered on 21 November 2024 by Michel Dubeau and Julien Grégoire at the concert Artéfacts II presented by Le Vivier at Salle bleue of Édifice Wilder — Espace danse in Montréal. This work was revised in 2025-2026. Thanks to the Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec (CALQ).

Premiere

• November 21, 2024, Artéfacts II, Salle bleue — Édifice Wilder — Espace danse, Montréal (Québec)