Good afternoon. Over the next 10 minutes, I will be talking only about facts and will use no stylistic devices whatsoever.
My name is Erick Dorion, I am 34 years old and I live in Quebec City. I am an artist and I have been earning a livelihood through my art for six years now. I am an audio artist, a musician. I am also an audio commissioner and an installation artist. My work has been presented in Belgium, France, Spain, Germany, Italy, England, Mexico, Cuba, Australia, the United States, Japan and at Canada's major festivals. I lived in an artists' retreat for two months in Spain last spring and a month in Mexico in November. My career is beginning to be well established. I am quite happy about that.
I will now share with you my life journey, which will give you an idea of the reason why I undertook all of these activities. In 1999, I decided to turn my pastime, which was to create, into a profession. In 2002, something quite special happened. I was able to obtain a grant for specialized sound recording and I recorded some pieces in a professional studio. The recordings were done professionally and were presented to a company that accepted to produce the record. It was a small release of just 1,000 records.
This however allowed me the benefit of critiques in more than 15 countries, of making myself known and of participating in major festivals. This first record was financed by the Canada Council for the Arts that provided me with a grant for specialized sound recording. The grant was for roughly $4,500. I did not take a cent of this money; the entire amount was spent on production. I was easily able to live on these $4,500 for four years, because I was invited throughout the world and I was able to secure some contracts.
Over time, these contracts allowed me to perform and to make myself known. All of a sudden, my career began to develop and thrive. In 2004, I produced a second album. It too benefited from a grant for specialized sound recording. I was given close to the same amount of money. This time, an Australian radio station heard my record. It then recommended it to two festivals. I was thus invited to two very important festivals in Australia. I was offered a plane ticket. I was able to live in Australia for three weeks, all expenses paid, and I also was given an appearance fee. All of that was a direct result of the fact that I had sent a record to that radio station, a record that was recorded and produced professionally. I went on to be invited to France and all over the place. That gives you a brief outline of my professional journey.
Recently, I was awarded a grant for the recording and production of a double CD as well as of an Audio Surround DVD, as commissioner for an organization in Quebec called Avatar. I am not talking just about a CD, but also an audio DVD. Perhaps that in five or six years' time, other recording formats will be used. What matters is not the release itself, but rather the recording and the way it is distributed. Audio art means just that. It is an art form in which one really works on the sound quality. It is therefore very important to have a grant for specialized sound recording because it is the quality of the sound that matters, be it on vinyl or on cassette.
I would now like to relay to you a few other facts involving the artists who work in my creative field. In 1998, a Toronto artist, Michael Snow, who is a world-renowned multi-field artist, earned the Governor General's Award. A few years ago, he was able to record a triple album of his work at the piano, a first in the career of this artist who has been practising art for 60 years. He was produced by Ohm Editions.
He too was given a grant for specialized sound recording.
At the other extreme of the spectrum, last year, Nicolas Bernier, who is 34 years old, received a grant for his recording entitled Les arbres. This album was recognized by the very prestigious Ars Electronica Awards, in Austria. All of a sudden, sales of his album went from 10 or 12 to 500 units, and this in the course of but a few weeks.This is obviously a very important festival. None of that would have been possible without the grant.
This grant provides artists working in parallel or lesser known fields the opportunity to reach a broader public, or at least an international audience. It also provides young artists the opportunity to show what they can do. A young artist can be given money in order to produce a quality recording that can then be presented to record companies, which is very important.
In my case, my first CD is still generating income, ten years later.
Thank you.