The secret to composer Denis Gougeon's music? 'Play, pleasure and childhood should never be far away'

For more than 40 years, Denis Gougeon has been the man behind the music, writing the scores played at concert halls across the country. He has composed more than 100 works, including music for solo instruments, voice, chamber groups, orchestras, theatres and ballets. 

With major accolades in the recent year, including two of Quebec's top honours for performing arts, the Prix Denise-Filiatrault and the Prix Serge-Garant, the man behind the music has stepped into the limelight.

Now, the composer is receiving one of the country's highest recognitions for creative accomplishment. Gougeon is the recipient of a 2025 Governor General's Performing Arts Award for lifetime artistic achievement. He will be honoured at a celebration on June 14 at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa. 

In an interview with Radio-Canada host Françoise Davoine, Goegeon shares how he was an avid visitor to the local zoo as a child — and how this experience fostered his imagination. "A departure is an opening towards the world," he recalls. "I learned this at the Granby Zoo that I often visited. I was already travelling then, observing these animals that came from other places."  

When asked about formative sounds from his childhood, the composer tells Davoine about being the son of a station master. "More than the sound [of trains], it's the idea of departures, of movement that inscribed itself in me."  

Speaking to Radio-Canada in 2022 about a new concerto in two movements he created for l'Orchestre symphonique du Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean, the composer revealed the secret behind the commissions.

Gougeon uses a piano, but also a software called Finale that dates to the late 1980s to produce sounds that simulate the instruments he writes for. Recognizing that a composer must have an intimate knowledge of all the instruments and their sonorities, he also says that they must be aware of the different ways an instrument is played, which has evolved over time.

Once on site, with the music played by real interpreters, Gougeon then adjusts the score depending on the characteristics of the orchestra and the acoustics of the space. The work is never over, even after the music has been written and handed off.

If you're wondering where you might have heard Gougeon's work — or, if you'd like a good place to start — Incarnation by Duo Concertante (Nancy Dahn and Timothy Steeves) was featured in CBC's 10 favourite classical albums of 2017. His opus, Clere Vénus, which you can hear him describe here in depth during a conference in 2023, also won him a Juno Award for classical composition in 2007.

While Gougeon is accustomed to writing music for some of the greatest artists, this doesn't stop him from also appreciating the power of music in other, less virtuosic contexts. In 2018, he composed an original work for elementary school children in Moncton inspired by the flight of birds — a metaphor for fulfilling dreams and surpassing oneself. The composer describes hearing this work played for him by the children as an incredibly touching gift.

Gougeon emphasizes the importance of taking care of his musical interpreters, who he sees as ambassadors for his work, highlighting how critical joy is in his compositions, and that "play, pleasure and childhood should never be far away."