Francis Dhomont (1926, Paris, France) studied under Charles Koechlin and Nadia Boulanger. Later, leaving behind instrumental writing, he dedicated himself exclusively to electroacoustic composition. An ardent proponent of acousmatics, his work (since 1963) is bearing witness to his continued interest in morphological interplay and ambiguities between sound and the images it may create. He has taught at the Université de Montréal from 1980 to 1996. He is an Associate Composer of the Canadian Music Centre (CMC, 1989) and a Founding Member (1986) and Honorary Member (1989) of the Canadian Electroacoustic Community (CEC). Honorary Member of the CIME-ICEM.
The “Université de Montréal” gave him a Doctorate Honoris causa.
Prize of the SACEM (France) 2007. The Conseil des arts et des lettres du Québec has awarded him a prestigious carreer grant. In 1999, he was awarded five first prizes at international competitions (Brazil, Spain, Italy, Hungary and Czech Republic). Invited in 1997 by the DAAD for a residence in Berlin (Germany). Five-time winner at the Bourges Competition (France)—the Magisterium Prize in 1988 — and Prize at Ars Electronica 1992 (Linz, Austria), etc.
He now lives in France, participates in several juries and focuses on composition and theory.
Phantom rains belongs to the category of my “abstract” works, those that have no other aim than the music itself, which do not refer to any representation other than musical, to no metaphor. Here, it is the project to associate, in continual agitation, musical parameters of multiple sources but of similar typo-morphologies: accumulations, various granulations, complex rhythmic figures, oscillating weavings, brief melisms, long ranges of outfits, splinters of heights.
And yet, these purely material choices evoke, by their often random and accumulative behavior, the hazardous song of the rain (which makes a brief appearance) and its sound models: runoff, unpredictable agitation, repetitive cycles, lulls, but also lapping, waving , cascade flux. downpouring sometimes.
Imagined rains or rain images?
FD
Phantom Rain was realized in the composer’s personal studio in Avignon, France. World premiere on December 11, 2019, International Festival “L’espace du son”, Théâtre Marni, Brussels, Belgium.