Les œuvres d’Aaron Gervais ont été interprétées dans plusieurs pays par des ensembles renommés, tels que Tapestry New Opera Works, l’Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, le Nouvel ensemble moderne, le Nieuw En­semble, Toca Loca, Continuum, le Knights Orchestra, l’Arditti Quartet, et le London Sinfonietta. Elles ont été diffusées par CBC, Radio-Canada, et la chaîne CIUT à Toronto.

Aaron a participé à plusieurs festivals de musique prestigieux, dont la Semaine de musique Gaudeamus à Amsterdam (sa pièce Culture n°1 a été choisie pour le concours en 2006); le Sound Festival à Aberdeen; les festivaux New Wave, soundaXis et SHIFT à Toronto; et le MATA Festival à New York. En 2008, il a été choisi comme représentant du Canada pour les Journées mondiales de la musique en Lituanie. En 2006, sa pièce Flüsse-Einflüsse a été sélectionnée comme pièce de concours final pour les étudiants d’accordéon de deuxième stage au Staatliche Hochschule für Musik – Trossingen en Allemagne.

En 2009, Aaron a reçu le premier prix dans le Concours international de jeunes compositeurs de l’orkest de ereprijs aux Pays-Bas. Il a aussi reçu plusieurs d’autres prix et bourses, dont un ASCAP Gould Award (2010) aux États-Unis, six prix aux Concours des jeunes compositeurs de la SOCAN (2010, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2004), le Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of Alberta Emerg­ing Artist Award (2008), ainsi que plusieurs bourses d’étude, de commande, et de voyage du Conseil des Arts du Canada, la SOCAN, et la Fondation des arts de l’Alberta.

Las obras de Aaron Gervais están tocadas en varios países para ensambles célebres como Tapestry New Opera Works, el Ensemble contemporain de Montréal, el Nouvel ensemble moderne, el Nieuw Ensemble, Toca Loca, Continuum, el Knights Orchestra, el Arditti Quartet, y el London Sinfonietta. Además, sus obras fueron transmitidas por el Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio-Canada, y la cadena CIUT de Toronto.

Aaron Gervais participó en varios festivales mayores de música, incluyendo la Semana de música Gaudeamus en Amsterdam (su obra Culture n°1 fue seleccionada para el concurso en 2006); el Sound Festival en Aberdeen; los festivales New Wave, soundaXis, y SHIFT en Toronto; y el MATA Festival en Nueva York. En 2008, él fue escogido como representativo de Canadá para los Días mundiales de la música en Lituania. En 2006, su obra Flüsse-Einflüsse sirvió como pieza de concurso final para los estudiantes de acordeón en la carrera Künsterlische Ausbildung del Staatliche Hochschule für Musik – Trossingen en Alemania.

En 2009, Aaron recibió el primer premio en el Concurso internacional de jóvenes compositores del orkest de ereprijs en los Países Bajos. También, Aaron recibió varios otros premios, incluyendo un ASCAP Gould Award (2010) en los Estados Unidos, seis premios del Concurso de jóvenes compositores de la SOCAN (2010, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2004), el Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor of Alberta Emerg­ing Artist Award (2008), y varias becas de estudio, de encargada, y de viaje, por el Consejo de los artes del Canadá, la SOCAN, y la Fundación de los artes del Alberta.

Aaron’s music has been performed by major ensembles in several countries, including the Nieuw Ensemble (NL), orkest de ereprijs (NL), the Ensemble contemporain de Montreal (CA), the Nouvel ensemble moderne (CA), Tapestry New Opera Works (CA), Toca Loca (CA), Continuum (CA), the Knights Orchestra (US), the London Sinfonietta (UK), and the Arditti Quartet (UK). His music has been broadcast on CBC Radio/Radio-Canada.

Prominent festivals have presented Aaron’s work, including Amsterdam’s prestigious Gaudeamus Music Week; Toronto’s New Wave, soundaXis, and SHIFT festivals; Aberdeen’s Sound Festival; and New York’s MATA Festival. He was additionally selected as a representative for Canada in the 2008 World Music Days in Lithuania. One of his solo pieces, Flüsse-Einflüsse, was chosen as a required exam piece for the graduating accordion students at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik – Trossingen in 2006.

Aaron was selected as the winner of the orkest de ereprijs’s International Young Composers Competition in the Netherlands in 2009. He has also received various other awards and grants, including an ASCAP Gould Award (2010), six prizes in Canada’s SOCAN Awards for Young Composers (2010, 2009, 2008, 2006, 2004, 2004), a Lieutenant Governor of Alberta Emerging Artist Award (2008), a SOCAN residency grant (2006), and numerous commissioning, travel, project, and study grants.

Long-term musical directions in Aaron’s composing include a focus on rhythm and time, a preoccupation with the social and cultural factors that influence listening and taste, an interest in found materials, an exploration of what in fact constitutes creativity, and a fascination with the ways that social technologies are changing listening habits, to name a few. His music incorporates a wide range of palettes, from rich microtonal textures and shimmering timbres to bright chipper counterpoint, upbeat rhythmic drive, blunt musical gestures, and light-hearted humour.

In addi­tion, my recent pieces have taken a par­tic­u­larly crit­i­cal slant on these ques­tions. I tend not to trust state­ments or ideas that people take as axiomatic, so I have focused on writng music that decon­structs these “givens” in order to find out exactly how axiomatic they really are—chal­lenge for the sake of chal­lenge, in other words. Almost always I do find some grain of truth in the axioms, though this process of intense scrutiny serves as a sort of inspira­tion to explore some­thing new, to push my music in dif­fer­ent direc­tions, and also to better inter­nal­ize the musi­cal or per­cep­tual or cul­tural truths that I do happen to stum­ble across. And what’s more, I often find myself saying, “Well, I was right, there really is a lot about that idea that is totally superfluous.”

So there are these two facets: one the one hand, my inter­est in cul­tural ele­ments of music, stem­ming from my back­ground in jazz, rock, clas­si­cal music, Cuban pop­u­lar and folk­loric musics, et cetera; and on the other, a kind of rebel­lious side that likes to ques­tion musi­cal author­i­ties for the fun of it.

On top of that, I also have some other more tran­sient inter­ests—flavours of the week that keep things fresh. For exam­ple, over the past few pieces, I have been inter­ested in writ­ing music that is fast-paced, rhyth­mic, and light in tex­ture. I’ve def­i­nitely writ­ten a lot of slow dark music, but it seems to me that there is a pre­pon­der­ance of that kind of thing in the new music com­mu­nity and I want to see how far I can push the other direc­tion. Com­posers like Jacob ter Veld­huis and Richard Ayres have been par­tic­u­lar inspi­ra­tions in that regard, though I am just as likely if not more to look at pop­u­lar music for this. I don’t think my music resembles those two com­posers very much, but they are people whose music I have thought about a lot as I write my own. And again, I also often sit and think about the Beastie Boys or the Black Eyed Peas; Aphex Twin, Björk, Stere­o­lab, or Metric; or what­ever. There’s some­thing to learn from any kind of music; the impor­tant thing is to actu­ally sit down with it and do the thinking.

Another thing that’s come up a lot lately is a rever­sal of formal pri­or­i­ties. Actu­ally, this might be start­ing to fall under the cat­e­gory of axioms I’ve chal­lenged repeat­edly instead of just a flavour of the week, but still… Many pieces by com­posers in the new music tra­di­tion have long, flow­ing forms with strong hier­ar­chi­cal inter­re­la­tions between sec­tions and seam­less tran­si­tions, often built upon a single motive or series of terse musi­cal ideas. That comes from the Beethoven tra­di­tion I sup­pose, which is as good a model as any to emu­late. But I wanted to know if there was another way to do it. So a lot of my recent music deals with very simple long-term formal struc­tures, based on a series of unre­lated musi­cal motives that change from sec­tion to sec­tion with very little tran­si­tional mate­r­ial. Coher­ence is cre­ated through the larger simple formal pat­terns instead of the long-term devel­op­ment of motives.

For exam­ple, Cul­ture no.1 is in four dis­creet sec­tions plus a coda. Each sec­tion is started by an audio sample that the musi­cians then imi­tate, and that’s all there is to the form. No interre­la­tion between the sec­tions, no mate­r­ial that comes back later to be devel­oped. But on the local level, I have very tight inter­ac­tions between mate­r­ial, clear devel­op­ment of motives, and this helps to carry the music through from one sec­tion to the next. The global char­ac­ter of the sec­tions, how­ever, and not the local devel­op­ment, is what strings together the piece as a whole.

As the saying goes, talk­ing about music is like danc­ing about archi­tec­ture, and prob­a­bly this little blurb will seem com­pletely inad­e­quate tomor­row. But that’s always the way it is and I hope at least this serves as a snap­shot of what’s going on in my music right now, which is always useful. Actu­ally, I don’t like that quo­ta­tion; talk­ing about music is noth­ing like dancing about archi­tec­ture. Metaphors like that over-simplify the issue and lead to the kinds of musi­cal axioms I don’t like. Maybe it’s better not to say any­thing. So I’ll just leave it here and you can decide for your­self what my motives are, if you’re so inclined.