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BIOGRAPHY “Maxime McKinley is one of the most interesting composers of his generation. Painting, literature, philosophy, poetry and music weave an eclectic web in the head of this creator.” (Guy Marceau, Words & Music, 2006) "["Wirkunst-Gómez"] was rhythmically vibrant and strikingly imaginative. A myriad of musical and cultural references churned in a well-crafted and seamlessly performed collage, often punctuated by rhythmic attacks on the guitar by Pablo Gómez, one of Mexico’s outstanding guitarists." (Anna Höstman, Canadian New Music Review, 2006) "Maxime McKinley’s “Wirkunst-Nijinski" (2007), inspired by the great Russian dancer’s labyrinth-like notebooks and drawings, was the most kinetic piece of the evening, had a beat, called very interesting sounds out of David Hetherington’s cello, combined hammered church bell sounds with high pitched ref’s whistle and ended peacefully as a requiem." (Stanley Fefferman, Showtime magazine, 2008) "Plus accessible, le reste du programme n'en était pas moins intéressant. "Les Pavements de San Marco" (2012) de Maxime McKinley, compositeur québécois actuellement en résidence à la Chapelle du Bon-Pasteur, nous invitaient ainsi à suivre de l'oreille quelques brefs motifs musicaux parfaitement identifiables, comme on balaye d'un oeil hypnotisé les récurrences géométriques d'une mosaïque." (Martin Guerpin, ResMusica, 2013) "On entre dans les sons; on monte, on marche, on écoute, on s'arrête dans cette pièce ["Dans de la nature", d'après le livre de Philippe Beck] pour écouter l'écho des cors, bois ou cuivres choisis pour leur timbre, puis les écoulements dégouttelants des percussions métalliques, les roulements de tambour et les superpositions de portées. L'imagination est grandement sollicitée." (Guylaine Massoutre, Spirale, 2013) "Il est absolument réjouissant d'entendre, dès les premières mesures d'une oeuvre musicale, la patte, la voix d'un compositeur, de reconnaître le compositeur. Maxime McKinley, malgré son jeune âge, a déjà un langage bien à lui." (Normand Babin, Montréalistement, 2014) "Dans
"Cortile di Pilato", c'est une combinaison assez rare en
musique d'aujourd'hui qui joint la claveciniste Mélisande
McNabney à celle qui est sa partenaire dans le quatuor baroque
Pallade Musica [Elinor Frey] pour interpréter la musique très
colorée de Maxime McKinley. Quelque chose comme le meilleur
des deux mondes." (Réjean Beaucage, Voir, 2019) "In
Maxime McKinley's "Pilates Courtyard" (inspired by the
eponymous place in Bologna), the continually changing
relationship between cello and harpsichord make for a reviting
experience." (Carlos Maria Solares, The Strad,
2019) "The 'abstract' mosaics on the wall of the Cortile di Pilato have clearly influenced McKinley [...] In terms both of form and emotion Maxime McKinley's handling of the interplay between cello and harpsichord (which is far from being a merely subordinate partner) is strikingly effective. A fine piece, with rich and complex resonances. (Glyn Pursglove, MusicWeb International, 2020) Maxime
McKinley
has received commissions from several and very diversified
ensembles and organisations,
ranging from specialized contemporary music to symphony
orchestras, early instruments to multidisciplinary projects. His
works have been performed, among others, by the Montreal
Symphony Orchestra (Kent Nagano), the Orchestre Métropolitain
(Dina Gilbert), the Calgary Philharmonic Orcehstra (Gary
Kulesha), the Toronto Esprit Orchestra (Alex Pauk), Toronto New
Music Concerts (Robert Aitken), the Toronto Symphony Youth
Orchestra (Alain Trudel), the
Camerata de las Américas (Jose Luis Castillo), Clavecin
en
concert (Luc Beauséjour), the Orchestre de la francophonie
(Jean-Philippe Tremblay), the Orchestre symphonique des jeunes
de Montréal (Louis Lavigueur),
the Orchestre de l'Université de Montréal (Jean-François
Rivest), the
Ensemble Caprice (Matthias Maute), the Ensemble contemporain de
Montréal (Véronique Lacroix), the
Meitar Ensemble, the Bozzini Quartet, the Molinari Quartet, New
Orford String Quartet, the Tana Quartet, the Trio Fibonacci, the
Trio Hochelaga, the duets Andrew Wan/Jonathan Crow, aTonalHits,
Mandolini/Poulin, soloists such as Louise Bessette,
Caroline Cren, Julie-Anne
Derome, Jérôme
Ducharme, Elinor Frey, Pablo Gómez, Vincent
Lauzer, Matthias Maute,
Matan
Porat and Andrea Tyniec, as well as singers such as
Marie-Annick Béliveau, Émilie Laforest and Vincent Ranallo.
His
works have been presented in many festivals, including the
Montreal/New Musics (MNM), the Symposium international d’art in
situ de la Fondation Derouin (Val-David), the New Wave
Composers Festival (Toronto), the Foro internacional de
musica nueva Manuel Enriquez (Mexico) and the
Zeitlupe - Hannoversche Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (Hannover).
His music is
regularly
performed all over Canada, as well as in United States, Mexico,
Columbia, England, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,
Spain, and has been broadcasted on CBC Radio Two and Espace
Musique de Radio-Canada. Some of his pieces have been recorded
on Analekta, Kohlenstoff, Mel-Bay and Starkland labels.
Maxime
McKinley
has received the 2012-2013 Opus Prize "Composer of the year",
the Prix d'Europe de composition 2009 (Père-Fernand-Lindsay
Prize), eleven prizes in the Socan national competition for
young composers (including the John-Weinzweig Grand Prize ex-aequo
in 2011), and the Prix collégien de musique contemporaine
(2011). His piece Hommage à
Louis-C. Tiffany, composed for the inauguration of the
Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, was nominated
for the 2011-2012 Opus Prize "Premiere of the year". In
addition, he was selected to participate in the Young Composers
Program of the National Arts Centre in Ottawa (2005) and the
Génération 2006 Canada-wide tour of the Ensemble Contemporain de
Montréal. He
received various grants, including several from the Canada Arts
Council (CAC), the Conseil des arts
et des lettres du Québec (CALQ), the Socan Foundation and
the Fonds québécois de recherche - Société et culture (FRQSC).
He is a member of the Society of Composers, Authors and Music
Publishers of Canada (Socan) and an associate composer of the
Canadian Music Centre (CMC). He was
previously a
member of the artistic comittee of the Society Codes d'accès
(2002-2003),
the national council of the Canadian League of Composers (CLC,
from 2009 to 2014), the
artistic comittee of the Société de musique contemporaine du
Québec (SMCQ, from 2008 to 2016), the administrative
board of the SMCQ (from 2012 to 2016), and
is now a member of
the editorial board of Circuit,
musiques contemporaines journal (since 2012), for
which he has been administrative director and editorial
secretary from 2010 to 2012, before being appointed as
editor-in-chief in 2016.
As
a writer, McKinley has published texts in Quebec, Belgium and
France, including articles about music in Circuit,
Synergie and Revue des Sciences Humaines (RSH),
as well as poems in Le
Quartanier and Les
écrits. He received, for his article about composer
Nicole Lizée, published in Circuit,
the 2013-2014 Opus Prize "Article of the year". In
2017, his dialogues (correspondence and interviews) with
Pascal Dusapin were published in France by the Presses
universitaires du Septentrion. He
was composer in residence at the Chapelle historique du
Bon-Pasteur from September 2011 to May 2014. From 2014 to 2016,
he was a postdoctoral researcher at the Chaire de recherche du
Canada en esthétique et poétique, where he worked on a
research-creation project on the poetry of Philippe Beck. In
2019-2020, he was "professeur
invité" at the Faculté de musique de l'Université de Montréal.
Since 2017, he has been an occasional professor at the
Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. (August
5, 2020)
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