The Montreal-based quartet ARCHITEK PERCUSSION creates musical experiences that entertain, captivate, and challenge audiences, often simultaneously. Founded in 2012 by graduates of McGill University, Architek quickly established itself as equally comfortable in performing classic repertoire and exploring new terrain through commissions and premieres. Architek regularly performs in Montreal, having partnered with Codes d’Acces, Innovations en Concert, Le Vivier, Suoni per Il Popolo, the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, the Pointe-a-Calliere Museum, and the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research in Music Media and Technology (CIRMMT). In addition, the quartet has performed extensively in the context of the Montreal Arts Council’s CAM En Tournée program, which presents free, accessible arts programming in the city’s 19 boroughs and 15 on-island suburbs.
Architek has toured across Canada multiple times, concertizing and providing outreach activities in conjunction with New Music Edmonton, the Winnipeg New Music Festival, The Cluster Festival of Music and Integrated Art (Winnipeg), Jeunesses Musicales Canada, Debut Atlantic, Ottawa Chamber Music Festival, Music on Main (Vancouver), The University of Toronto New Music Festival, The Music Gallery (Toronto), and the Scotia Festival of Music (Halifax). In 2021, Architek partnered with Suoni Per Il Popolo to present the inaugural UnDrum Festival, a multi-day event showcasing artists dedicated to pushing the frontiers of drum set performance. Architek’s international touring has taken them across Northern Europe in collaboration with the Ultima Festival (Oslo), NyMusikk Bergen, NTNU (Trondheim), Fylkingen (Stockholm), the Universities of Glasgow and Huddersfield (UK), Rainy Days Festival (Luxembourg), and the Royal College of Music (Stockholm).
Architek has commissioned and/or premiered over 60 works by composers from Canada, France, Iran, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden, USA, and the UK. Several of these commissions have led to commercial recording projects, of which Architek appears on eight: Bookburners (Nicole Lizée / Centrediscs, 2014), A Boat Upon its Blood (Jason Sharp / Constellation Records, 2016), Metatron (Eliot Britton / Ambiances Magnétiques, 2017), Katana of Choice (Ben Reimer / Redshift Records, 2017), The Privacy of Domestic Life (Architek Percussion / Centrediscs, 2018), Six Changes (Architek Percussion 2022), Call Sign (Architek Percussion, 2022), and Apparitions vol. I (Olivier Alary / Line Imprints, 2023). Architek’s diverse repertoire is presented in a manner inspired by the quartet’s belief that given proper context, every audience member should feel welcomed and included through the performance of contemporary art music. Architek Percussion uses Vic Firth sticks and mallets on Sabian cymbals and Yamaha instruments.
Architek Percussion is Noam Bierstone, Ben Duinker, Alexander Haupt, and Alessandro Valiante.
