FIMAV 42 | 16 May Schedule

SATURDAY | 11 a.m.

CINEMA PROGRAM 1 : Graver l’homme : arrêt sur Pierre Hébert

Salle les-frères-Lemaire | Carré 150 | $10

2024, 1 h 17 min, Documentary

Structured like a master class in film engraving, Scratches of Life: The Art of Pierre Hébert is a tribute to the pioneering animator, whose scratch-on-film technique has long served as a vessel for his restless artistic exploration. Director Loïc Darses traces Hébert’s journey from his early abstract works at the NFB to his later documentary-animation hybrids, revealing an artist who has never ceased to question, experiment, and reflect on the world around him. The film captures both the man and his body of work, peeling back the layers of his process to uncover his thoughts on history, identity, and mortality.

SATURDAY | 1 p.m.

PABLO JIMÉNEZ & ADRIANNE MUNDEN-DIXON

Église St-Christophe d’Arthabaska
$25

These recent arrivals in Montreal –– Jiménez from Bogotá, Colombia; Munden-Dixon from Savannah, Georgia, by way of New York –– have transformed the field of contemporary and improvised music, seemingly ‘playing everywhere and with everyone.’ These young virtuosi are utterly simpatico, as each sutures oblique, quicksilver melodic threads around the other’s.

SATURDAY | 3 p.m.

RAFAEL TORAL Guitar Concert

Cabaret Guy-Aubert | Carré 150 | $25

Rafael Toral’s Spectral Evolution was widely hailed as one of 2024’s best records, a dreamlike wash of sumptuous chord progressions paired with ethereal synthesised sounds, often evoking birdsong. Guitar Concert draws on the latest chapter of Toral’s work, presenting material from the brand-new Traveling Light (Drag City), comparably rich treatments of timeless jazz ballads.

SATURDAY | 5 p.m.

YVES CHARUEST, JOHN EDWARDS & MARK SANDERS

Centre des Congrès | Hôtel le Victorin | $25

John Edwards and Mark Sanders are arguably the most in-demand bass-drums pairing in contemporary music, sought in trios formed by FIMAV legends Evan Parker and John Butcher. Here, they re-join Yves Charuest, one of Canada’s consummate improvisers, who connected with them during a six-month residency in London, laying the groundwork for this first Canadian performance.

SATURDAY | 6 p.m.

INFORMAL CONCERT IN THE Q.G.

Quartier général FIMAV | Carré 150 | free

Limited capacity; first come first served.
Festival passeports do not guarantee access.

Visit the brand-new FIMAV Quartier général –– the Festival Hub –– in the Studio Monique-Bourgeois, Carré 150! There, between afternoon and evening concerts, festival artists will have the time and space to play informal concerts of freely improvised music. Grab a drink, grab a sandwich, and hear FIMAV artists up close in first-time musical encounters, all for free!

SAMEDI | 7:30 p.m.

PAT THOMAS Solo Piano

Salle les-frères-Lemaire | Carré 150 | $30

With growing international attention from his work with أحمد [Ahmed] plus a recent sequence of exceptional solo releases, pianist Pat Thomas is ‘having a moment.’ It’s a moment, however, that’s unfolded over decades of dedicated work as a composer, improviser, thinker, and collaborator with most of the major figures in contemporary creative music. This will be his first solo concert in Canada.

SATURDAY | 9:30 p.m.

DARIUS JONES fLuXkit Vancouver ~~(its~~ suite but sacred)

Cabaret Guy-Aubert | Carré 150 | $30

Featuring members of the Darius Jones Trio and Josh Zubot Strings, fLuXkit Vancouver is rich testimony to Jones’s brilliance as a composer. Originally commissioned by the Western Front artist-run-centre, Jones developed the work during residencies in Vancouver 2019-22, activating the immeasurable talents of this astonishing group.

SATURDAY | 11 p.m.

JOHN OSWALD PLUNDERPHONICOVERALLS

Quartier général FIMAV | Carré 150 | free

Limited capacity; first come first served.
Festival passeports do not guarantee access.

Toronto polymath artist John Oswald pioneered the compositional approach, Plunderphonics, primarily as a recorded project making familiar music unfamiliar through radical re-creation –– Michael Jackson is an infamous example. Coveralls is a live version of the concept that he sums up as “karaoke in reverse”; he will play the isolated vocal tracks of known singers – while three groups of festival musicians, each on a different night and hand-picked by Oswald, will improvise strange and wonderful accompaniments.

Artistic Vision 2026

“At FIMAV 42 you can hear world-class artists from Quebec, Canada, and abroad in formal settings with which long-time festival audiences will be familiar. Darius Jones, Pat Thomas, Rafael Toral, Amirtha Kidambi, and Eric Chenaux, for example, have never played FIMAV before. With our additional series of free informal concerts and satellite event, audiences will have different kinds of access to many of them as well. This edition will be ‘up close and personal’ and we think it will be more festive because of it!”

-Scott Thomson, Artistic Director