Évidences
Confluence – Philippe Côté and François Bourassa – meet Sixtrum.
A show co-presented with Le Vivier.
PROGRAM
Saxophonist and composer Philippe Côté joins the Sixtrum percussion ensemble and pianist François Bourassa for the world premiere of new works that place percussion at the center of the music, shaping an ever-changing landscape of rhythms and textures where improvisation unfolds. Building on the duo project Confluence (Côté/Bourassa, 2023), this concert extends the duo’s dialogue in an encounter with Sixtrum’s inventive percussive universe: Évidences – Confluence meets Sixtrum.
The main piece, Évidences, follows in the footsteps of Thelonious Monk’s Evidence: rhythms, fragments, and unexpected accents appear, disappear, and reappear. Familiarity wavers and dissolves. The boundary between written and improvised music is never fixed; every moment is in flux, every choice resonates.
The title has several meanings: in English, evidence evokes clues or traces; in French, évidence refers to what is clear or unavoidable. For Côté, it is obvious that jazz and contemporary music are in constant dialogue, and that open forms, like those of Earle Brown, offer an inspiring way to fuse these worlds.
Inspired by these open forms, Côté’s music combines rigor and unpredictability, precision and free-flowing expression. Thanks to Sixtrum’s energy, Bourassa’s percussive touch, and Côté’s lyrical and mysterious saxophone playing, the concert unfolds like a vivid and ever-changing soundscape.