Boston-based trombonist Michael Prentky will tour his debut album, sad boy:ADD:apocalypse, across the Northeast U.S. and Canada, including a Sat. Jan 17 (9 pm) at La Sotterenea (4848 Boulevard Saint-Laurent) with Montreal-based band Kallisto.
Prentky’s orchestra includes a string quartet, four trombones, tuba, and rhythm section. Prentky will conduct, play trombone, sing, and recite original poetry. In addition to performing the entire album, Prentky will be premiering new original Klezmer compositions. He’s bringing a fresh perspective to Klezmer music with his high-energy trombone band and harmonically-rich compositions while staying rooted in Klezmer traditions. He’ll be teaching audiences traditional corresponding Yiddish line dancing, such as the zhouk (aka hora) and terkisher, with the intention of reviving endangered dance steps.
Six years in the making, sad boy:ADD:apocalypse, is an epic, Zappa-esque suite for small orchestra – string quartet, four trombones and rhythm section. This mammoth odyssey is Prentky’s unwavering commitment to authenticity. The writing is lush, emotive and cathartic. Prentky’s sonic worlds showcase his eclectic interests: dreamy Beach House guitar riffs, avant-pop orchestral strings, breakbeat klezmer, pacific brass chorales, confessional poetry and raucous instrumental frenzies. Prentky conducts the orchestra, plays trombone, sings, and recites original poetry.
Prentky’s freelancing on trombone can be summarized in three words – chameleon, omnivore and polyglot. Navigating performances with rapper 50 Cent, Mozambican Funk band Kina Zoré (featured on NPR Tiny Desk), avante-garde jazz with the Walking Cliché Sextet, or Balkan Romani music with Sarma Brass Band requires an adventurous and flexible musicianship.
MONTREAL CRITICS’ WEEK: The second edition of Montreal Critics’ Week is scheduled for Jan. 12 to 18. Building on the success of its first edition, which achieved 98 percent occupancy, this year’s event will be held in a venue that can accommodate nearly 300 filmgoers per screening: Cinéma du Musée. A selection of 26 films – short, medium, and feature length – from 14 countries is bundled together over the course of seven distinct and complementary days. Each program will be followed by in-depth conversations between filmmakers, writers, critics and the public.
The Critics’ Week celebrates local cinema, with several world premieres by renowned Canadian filmmakers. On opening night, Renaud Després-Larose and Ana Tapia Rousiouk (The Dream and the Radio) will present their sophomore effort, Cauchemar Conseil, a dazzling sleight of hand in which Lucie, a PhD candidate, seeks to break free from the physical and psychic grip of her thesis and its supervisor. On Tuesday will be held the world premiere of the new fable by Olivier Godin (Il n’y a pas de faux métier), the bawdy and unpredictable Oublie pas le gruau starring Jean Marc Dalpé. Toronto filmmaker Christopher Beaulieu will also unveil Otium, an insightful foray into liminal urban spaces and the economic dispossession of younger generations. The duo formed by Ariane Falardeau St-Amour and Paul Chotel (Douce prisonnière), Samuel Terry Pitre (D’époques), as well as Portuguese director Nuno Pimentel (I’m Feeling Something) will also world premiere their work.
The festival will conclude with an encounter between two seasoned documentarians: Nicolas Wadimoff, a UQAM-educated Swiss filmmaker whose Qui vit encore (North American Premiere) gathers the testimonies of Palestinian exiles as they rehearse a play based on their experience of genocide; and Robert Morin, whose Six portraits néoréalistes (World Premiere) chronicles the daily lives of six African migrants in Rome while also questioning the heritage of post-war Italian cinema in a world fraught with alienating screens. That evening, the Montreal Critics’ Week will also host the Luc-Perreault-AQCC prize, an annual Canadian film award presented since 1974 by the Quebec Critics’ Association, awarded by its members to a Quebec film deemed exemplary that year.
This edition will also feature a spotlight on Filipino cinema and its lasting political ethos. The focus will include two short films from emergent filmmakers: Water Sports by Whammy Alcazaren and Objects Do Not Randomly Fall From the Sky by Maria Estela Paiso, as well as the 4K restoration of Kisapmata, the 1981 masterpiece by the late Mike De Leon, who unfortunately left us in the summer of 2025. It will also include a special screening of Lav Diaz’s Magellan to coincide with its theatrical release at Cinéma du Musée.
An initiative of the Montreal-based online magazine Panorama-cinéma, the Montreal Critics’ Week returns with its annual event which extends the online magazine’s critical lens offline by fostering a space for discourse and discovery in cinema. This non-competitive festival promotes emerging filmmakers through thematic, formal and political pairings designed to encourage inquisitive spectatorship that considers the thematic, political and formal ramifications of the chosen works.
“This edition takes the form of a journey through a succession of landscapes, alternately deserted and fertile: an ambiguous space from which life and invention nevertheless emerge,” says a statement from Director of Programming Ariel Esteban Cayer and General Manager Mathieu Li-Goyette. “In a radical inversion of the principles of austerity, it aims to present a lush vision of cinema worthy of the imagination of its artists; a series of films that navigate between liberating dreams and distressing reality, via bodies and minds whose epic and intimate geographies remain to be mapped. Conceived as playful and confrontational, this new Week aims to flow like sand through fingers, to strike like a wave crashing on the rocks, to inspire critical discourse with images that transcend mere representation.”
The programming committee of the Montreal Critics’ Week is composed of Ariel Esteban Cayer, Mathieu Li-Goyette and Olivier Thibodeau (Panorama-cinéma), Mélopée B. Montminy (24 images), Justine Smith (CultMTL, Roger Ebert.com) and Richard Bolisay (Break It to Me Gently: Essays on Filipino Film).
Info: www.semainedelacritique.ca
ORCHESTRE MÉTROPOLITAIN: To open its January season, the Orchestre Métropolitain invites the public to a concert featuring some of the greatest British film music that has left a mark on the collective imagination. Conductor Andrew Crust will lead the program titled Symphonic Tales of British Cinema: From Hercule Poirot to Harry Potter, bringing together major English classics on Friday, Jan. 23 (7:30 p.m.) at the Maison symphonique de Montréal. The night before, on Jan. 22 (7:30 pm) the program will also be presented at the Mirella and Lino Saputo Theatre in Saint-Léonard.
The Orchestre Métropolitain.
The most powerful soundtracks can stand alone without any visual support. They come alive, becoming characters in their own right, and hearing a few bars can instantly transport us back to a favorite scene. This concert brings to life the iconic British characters who inspired some of the greatest film scores. Experience timeless Shakespearean tragedies, the world of Harry Potter through John Williams’s evocative theme, the romance of Jane Austen and the high-stakes world of James Bond. It will be presented without film projection.
This concert, presented as part of the Ionescu Family Series, is included in the Conseil des arts de Montréal (CAM) en tournée (Touring Program), which enables the Orchestre Métropolitain to share symphonic music across several boroughs and strengthen the bond between artists and Montreal’s communities. Thanks to CAM’s ongoing support and the exceptional contribution of the OVI Fund – Ionescu Family Foundation, established through Alex Ionescu’s historic $5 million gift, the series’ longevity is now secured for years to come. This philanthropic gesture reflects a deep commitment to future generations and to all Montrealers.
Info: https://orchestremetropolitain.com/en/seasons/2025-2026/
MARCHE COMMUNE: Les Films du tricycle is will be presenting the feature length documentary Marche commune, written, directed and produced by Sylvain L’Espérance. Following its world premiere at the Montreal International Documentary Festival (RIDM), the film will be released on Jan. 16. Screenings with the filmmaker in attendance will take place on Jan. 16 at the Cinémathèque québécoise, on Jan. 25 at Cinéma Public, and on Feb. 1 at Cinéma Moderne. A film collage, Marche commune delves into 125 years of cinema to highlight something of a humanity in disarray, faltering, searching, stumbling, taking the wrong direction, then recovering. Taking the form of a vast nervous system in which each person’s movement is connected to that of others, the film’s poetic experience becomes political by reconnecting the broken links between beings, and between beings and the world.
Born in Montreal, L’Espérance studied visual arts and cinema. He has made 14 films that combine direct cinema and experimental approaches in a poetic exploration of reality. His works have been shown in some twenty countries. Intérieurs du delta won the Best Director Award at the Festival dei Popoli in Florence (2010), while Sur le Rivage du monde received the Grand Prix in the international competition at DOK.fest München(2013). Combat au bout de la nuit was presented in the Panorama section of the Berlinale (2017). Animal Macula has distinguished itself at several festivals: Special Jury Prize in the National Feature Film Competition at RIDM 2021, special mention in the Night Award section of the Signes de nuit festival in Bangkok (2023), then Grand Prix in the international documentary competition at the Signes de nuit festival in Paris, in October 2023. The film was also programmed in the Front(s) populaire(s) section of the festival Cinéma du réel in Paris in March 2023. Archéologie de la lumière won the Special Jury Prize in the National Competition at RIDM in November 2024. The film was also presented at DOK.fest München and DOXA, and is currently available on Tënk.
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