Yves Daoust
The Art of Sound
Born in Longueuil, Québec, Yves Daoust is one of the most distinctive and influential voices in contemporary electroacoustic music. His work stands at the crossroads of concert music, cinema, pedagogy, and sound research. Few composers have so consistently transformed listening itself into an artistic experience.
Daoust began piano studies at the age of seven with Alice Vigeant. At twenty, he entered the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Québec in Montréal — initially in the piano class of Irving Heller, subsequently in the composition class of Gilles Tremblay. He then studied analysis and composition in Paris under Gilbert Amy.
A decisive encounter with Maurice Blackburn led Daoust to the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), where he undertook specialized training in film music. Immersed in the legendary Sound Workshop (1976–1979), he developed a refined sensitivity to sound-image relationships, narrative listening, and spatial perception.
Daoust trained from 1973 to 1975 at the Groupe de musique expérimentale de Bourges (GMEB, later renamed IMEB), where he was deeply influenced by Alain Savouret’s concept of “virtual cinema” — treating sound as a dramaturgical space in itself. This approach became foundational to his aesthetic: music not merely as structure, but as a lived, cinematic experience for the ear. He remained in touch with the IMEB until its closure in 2011 and composed many works on commission for the Institut.
In 1978, together with Marcelle Deschênes, Michel Longtin, Philippe Ménard, Jean Sauvageau, and Pierre Trochu, he co-founded ACREQ (Association pour la création et la recherche électroacoustiques du Québec) — an organization he would direct for ten years, and which later evolved into Elektra — helping establish Québec as a major hub of electroacoustic innovation. In 1981, he was appointed professor at the Conservatoire de musique et d’art dramatique du Québec, where he designed and institutionalized comprehensive electroacoustic programs for both the Montréal and Québec City branches. He retired from the Conservatoire in 2011.
So-called mixed music — where instrumental and electroacoustic composition share the spotlight — represents a major aspect of Daoust’s œuvre. His work has also been marked by a long-standing collaboration with Mimes Omnibus and its director Jean Asselin.
In 2009, Yves Daoust received the Prix Serge-Garant from the Fondation Émile-Nelligan in recognition of his lifelong contribution to musical creation, innovation, and transmission.