Over the past 30 years, Pierre Ouellet has written the music for numerous award winning television programs and series. As well, he has arranged and produced experimental, avant-garde, dance music and a large number of children’s albums. Lifeworldsound presents, for the first time in finished form, several of the musical pathways and intuitions pursued by Pierre Ouellet over this career.
While at the Ontario College of Art (1974-78), Pierre became interested in experimental music and studied with famed avant-garde composer Udo Kasemets. Under the tutelage of Mr. Kasemets, Pierre explored various forms of aleatory music as well as immersing himself in a variety of performative improvisational musical practices and genres. He was, along with sculptor Steve Aikenhead and Bob MacDonald, one of the founding members of Interspecies music. He produced three records for the Music Gallery Editions, one improvisational recording of the ensemble performing at the Music Gallery entitled Whalescapes, a compilation of underwater recordings of whales and other marine creatures, entitled Northern Whales and a musical ethnography of folklore music, entitled Sur la Côte Nord, recorded in the Tadoussac region with local musicians he had met while studying and recording the whales in the estuary of the St-Lawrence.
On yet another front, Pierre arranged and produced 26 albums for a musical educational series entitled Musicanada published by Holt Rheinhart and Winston and recorded and produced numerous albums for children, notably with french performer Jacquot.
Pierre also wrote extensively for educational television, providing the soundtracks and sound design for over 50 TVO and CBC series and garnering a Gemini nomination for his efforts. in 1971.
After returning to university to study communication in the late 1990s, Mr. Ouellet, all the while composing and producing music for a number of clients, began to focus on his own work and, in so doing, the seeds of the Lifeworld Project were planted. The current efforts are the culmination of this personal intuition into his own creative being.
Jim MacDonald is a musical child prodigy who gained success as a keyboard player in the 80s with Juno nominated band Rational Youth. Since the early 1980s, he has composed the music for many television programs with Pierre Ouellet and they have been musical writing partners for 30 years and counting.
Jim MacDonald studied piano at the Royal Conservatory of music in Toronto starting at the age of 5. Being brought up in a musical family (his father was a professional musician), he was surrounded by music which influenced his artistic sensibilities.
By the age of 19 he was playing professionally in a variety of rock and progressive rock bands. Following this, he signed his first recording contract while a member of Zero One in 1981. After touring and receiving moderate airplay for this album, Jim took an interest in recording due to the fact that the record was self produced by the band. This album was nominated for a Juno Award for best engineered album back in 1981. After breaking up, Jim spent a few years doing recording sessions as a keyboard player and was a hired gun for many Queen St. bands in the 80’s.
Another opportunity came along in 1985 with a Montreal based band called Rational Youth that was signed to Capitol Records. The band toured that summer and disbanded at the beginning of 1986.
At that time, Jim was approached by band manager Jake Gold to play keyboards for RCA recording artists New Regime. At the time, the band was preparing a second album that was to be produced by Billy Idol and Parachute Club bassist Steve Webster. After about 6 months in the studio at Phase 1 in Toronto, the album was finally released. A tour with British Funk Rock band Level 42 was booked across Canada in 1988. Unfortunately, due to soft record sales at the time and the aquisition of RCA by BMG, the band was dropped off the label roster.
At this point Jim met studio owner Pierre Ouellet and a collaboration was started in composing and sound design for TV and various film projects. During these years, there was opportunity to get back into composition and production at a higher level. (The rest is history)
Katherine Piro is the graphic designer/consultant for Project Lifeworld. She has been deeply involved in all aspects of the visual articulation of the project – from album design to graphics for the films and videos. A unique artist whose singular vision can only grow stronger and more meaningful with time.
SOME OF KATHERINE’S WORK
Philippe Ouellet was the original web designer and technical consultant for the project. He assisted in the filming of the Lifeworld Image documentaries. He brought a freshness of vision to the project supported by a depth of programming knowledge.
Philippe passed away tragically in June 2016 – always he remains present in our work and in our mind.
