La mémoire de ma mère

IInvited by Le Diamant to develop a new large-scale musical theatre project, following in the footsteps of their previous works Joue à Tom Waits and Kitchen Chicken, Quebec City’s L’Orchestre d’hommes-orchestres unveils the world premiere of La mémoire de ma mère at Le Diamant.

In a fragmented room, memories come to light and take shape. Familiar objects become the triggers of an exuberant ceremony. Voices sing of what disappears, what remains, and what resists. The call of the red-headed woodpecker, the shores of the St. Lawrence, love stories, a mother’s memory, vernacular architecture, jangling coins, road maps, silence—how do we stand in the face of their inevitable fading?

Blending music and performance, La mémoire de ma mère is a shifting space where the personal touches the collective, where ghosts show up unannounced, where we celebrate, long, regret, and begin again. The performers play with traces of the past as one might invent a ritual—nostalgic and festive all at once.

As always, music is at the heart of it all. Much like memory—layered, preserved, interwoven with both logical and serendipitous connections—this new creation explores a wildly eclectic repertoire. With their signature flair, L’Orchestre d’hommes-orchestres stitches together a patchwork theatre of impulses, embracing our inheritances full-heartedly and toasting what’s to come.

ABOUT L’ORCHESTRE D’HOMMES-ORCHESTRES
L’Orchestre d’hommes-orchestres is a collective of unruly artist-musicians founded in Quebec City in 2002. Impossible to pin down, straddling the edges of multiple artistic disciplines, L’ODHO defines itself as a permanent construction site for the live arts. With some fifteen productions for stage and public space under its belt—including Joue à Tom Waits, Cabaret brise-jour, Tintamarre caravane, Les Palais, and Kitchen Chicken—the group has performed in over 90 cities across some twenty countries in Europe, the Americas, and Oceania. Handpicked by Robert Lepage to receive the Glenn Gould Foundation’s Toronto City Protégé Prize in 2013, L’ODHO also received the Ville de Québec Prize in 2015.

Le Diamant presented Joue à Tom Waits in 2022.