This episode portrays the diverse music scenes of Montréal. Producer Esther Bourdages traces their global connections and historical roots and explores the effects of gentrification on the city’s cultural life.

I produced a subjective portrait of Montréal’s music through five different voices and five musicians who both live and play music in Montréal. Adam Basanta, Silvano Mercado, Mili Hong, Joseph Sannicandro, and Kimihiro Yasaka are from different geographic areas and work across diverse practices, from sound art to jazz, experimental, contemporary, classical, and world music.

Artist, researcher, writer, and theorist Budhaditya Chattopadhyay inspired me when he stated: “Sound as a creative media socially connects people and places through its manifold travels.” Music has the power to reunite people, musicians, and audiences. I aim to portray the unique touch of Montréal’s music scenes and what it makes possible.

I look to explore, underscore, and analyze the favorable conditions of Montréal’s music scenes that are already rich and developing. The fervor of musicians is often the motor that contributes to building the fabric of the music communities. Musicians share collective experiences, and cultural values are negotiated: openness to the other, welcoming Montréal music scenes, and engagement are the keys. The persona of Montréal’s music is the result of its history, the economic context of a low-cost cosmopolitan city, and the overlap of immigration. The music scenes in Montréal embrace and celebrate multicultural heritages.

Finally, the interviews capture the challenges of being a musician in Montréal, a hip, bohemian international city, highlighting new shifts and new transitions that are slowly cropping up as effects of gentrification. Those changes affect the structure of musicians’ lives. On that note, I interrogate how sustainability echoes the conveniences of modern life.

CONTRIBUTOR: SILVANO MERCADO VILCHES

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