Société québécoise de recherche en musique (SQRM)

Société québécoise de recherche en musique (SQRM)

Société québécoise de recherche en musique (SQRM); formerly, ARMuQ (Association pour l'avancement de la recherche en musique du Québec). Non-profit organization aimed at all researchers and organizations concerned with Quebec's musical heritage. The only association of its kind in Canada, ARMuQ originated in Montreal with a meeting of several musicologists who had become aware of the isolation of researchers and of the difficulty in circulating data. A committee was formed and a first general meeting took place at UQAM 13 Jun 1980, when Maryvonne Kendergi was appointed president (1980-3). She has been succeeded by: Marie-Thérèse Lefebvre (1983-5), Claire Grégoire-Reid (1985-7), Hélène Garceau (1987-9), Claire Rhéaume (1989-91) and Denis Rivest (from 1991). By 1991, ARMuQ numbered some 60 members from Quebec, New Brunswick, and Ontario; these were musicologists, performers, librarians, instrument builders, archivists, ethnomusicologists, music teachers, and students wishing to contribute to the advancement of musical research in Quebec. Several organizations, corporations and universities had also joined ARMuQ, among them the BN du Q, the Canadian Music Centre, EMC, the CBC, and the music faculties of Laval University, McGill University, and the University of Montreal.

The general regulations of ARMuQ specify the organization's objective: to foster the development of musical research in Quebec through activities conducive to the circulation of information among members. ARMuQ has organized an annual symposium (beginning in 1982) featuring various activities, particularly lectures, concerts and exhibitions. By 1991 these symposia had been held in Montreal (four times), Quebec City (twice), Trois-Rivières, Toronto, and Chicoutimi. Moreover, ARMuQ publishes Les Cahiers de l'ARMuQ, a yearly periodical consisting in the main of reports on the symposia. Among the topics which have been discussed are inventories of musical archives and collections, nationalism and music in Canada, music and the Quebec press, music theory books printed in Quebec, opera in Montreal and Quebec City, and articles on such musicians as Emma Albani, Claude Champagne, Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux, Ernest Gagnon, Éviola Gauthier, Glenn Gould, Léo Roy, and Claude Vivier. Since its inception, ARMuQ has received funding from membership fees, and also grants from MACQ for the organization of the symposia. An archival collection of its records is kept at the Service des Archives of the University of Montreal.