Pierre Mercure’s music accompanies the dance
Much of Pierre Mercure’s catalogue remains a mystery since many manuscripts are untraceable and tapes lost. Focusing on dance productions that included his works, this article seeks to retrace their history based on photographs, performance programs and newspaper articles. From this corpus we see how Mercure brought new thinking to composition through the years. He took his writing in new directions, recasting the conventional concert format by using the tools and techniques of electroacoustic music. His works incorporated dancers and technical equipment along with special lighting and collaborators from the fine arts. In company with the Refus global artists, Pierre Mercure was clearly a vital factor in the dissemination and reception of contemporary music in Québec.