Francois Houle

François Houle, a Vancouver native, maintains an intense schedule as clarinetist, composer, and improviser across avant-garde jazz and modern classical music. Throughout the 1990s he helped shape contemporary Canadian music by performing with Standing Wave, the Vancouver New Music Ensemble, and other ensembles. He cultivated a personal improvisational vocabulary that draws every conceivable sound from the instrument and its detached parts. Appearances have placed him alongside musicians ranging from Wayne Horvitz to Evan Parker, and he has worked with composers such as Paul Dolden. Several recordings have appeared on the Canadian labels Songlines and Red Toucan. He belongs to a trio completed by guitarist Scott Fields and bassist Jason Roebke; the group released Hornet's Collage on Nuscope in 1999. Cryptology appeared in early 2001, with a collaboration alongside pianist Benoit Delbecq issued the following year. Outside performance and recording, Houle prepared graphic-score versions of Catriona Strang’s poems that ECW Press and various North American poetry magazines subsequently published.