Photo by Marie-Michèle Bouchard. Top, from left to right / En haut de gauche à droite : Sam Rick (Disque 7ième ciel), Jay Scott, Pops (Clément Langlois-Légaré), Quiet Mike. Bottom, left to right / En bas de gauche à droite : Sara Dedane (SOCAN), Poolboy (Adel), FouKi

Top Secrets video: “Copilote” by FouKi X Jay Scøtt

Story by Eric Parazelli | Friday April 22nd, 2022

Click the image to watch the interview with Fouki & Jay ScottIn our Top Secrets videos, music creators who’ve attained a No. 1 spot on the ADISQ BDS or Francophone or Anglophone Correspondants charts, celebrated by a SOCAN No. 1 Song Award, tell us the secrets behind the creation of their hit.

On April 2, 2022, popular rapper FouKi played his ultimate show at Montréal’s MTELUS. SOCAN Creative and Partnerships Executive Sara Dendane took the opportunity to present a plaque to the artist ,as well as Jay Scøtt, and the whole team behind the creation of the song “Copilote,” which reached the top of the BDS and ADISQ Correspondants francophones charts, and stayed there for nine and seven weeks, respectively. The bona fide earworm was co-created by Pier-Luc Papineau, Léo Fougères, Adel Kazi Aoual, Clément Langlois-Légaré, and Tom St-Laurent, and is published by Disques 7 ième Ciel.

In the Top Secrets video, FouKi and Jay Scøtt take us behind the scenes of the fruitful collaboration in creating this award-winning SOCAN No. 1 song.

Video: The Pros – Screen Composer Amin Bhatia

Story by Howard Druckman | Tuesday April 26th, 2022

SOCAN introduces a new video series, The Pros, where leaders in their musical fields share some of the high-level information they’ve learned while creating a significant body of work over the course of their careers.

First up is screen composer Amin Bhatia, who has:

  • composed 50-plus scores, over 30-plus years;
  • written music for film, television, radio, and theatre;
  • with co-composer Ari Posner, scored the CBC/Netflix series Anne with an E and internationally-acclaimed series Flashpoint and X Company;
  • written compositions for The Handmaid’s Tale;
  • scored the feature films Storm, Iron Eagle II, and John Woo’s Once a Thief;
  • earned multiple Canadian Screen Awards with co-composer Ari Posner, and an Emmy Award nomination for the Disney series Get Ed;
  • worked with David Foster and Steve Porcaro, and seen some of his music appear on Michael Jackson’s Thriller;
  • seen his albums The Interstellar Suite and Virtuality become standard repertoire in marching-band competitions.

Here, Bhatia explains the key difference between scoring a live-action screen production, and an animated one.

Click on the image to watch our interview with Amin Bhatia

Click on the image to watch our interview with Amin Bhatia

SOCAN staff attend former Mohawk Institute Residential School virtual tour

Story by Howard Druckman | Friday April 22nd, 2022

As part of SOCAN’s ongoing journey toward understanding the impact of residential schools in Canada, the organization’s Equity Task Force arranged for a virtual tour of the former Mohawk Institute Residential School, presented by the Woodland Cultural Centre, on April 21, 2020.

With SOCAN’s Catharine Saxberg moderating, Trisha Kelley, Development Co-Ordinator, and Chris Ashkewe, Associate Director, of the Woodland Cultural Centre, discussed the school and its 140-year history.

The event included a room-by-room video tour of the building, guided by Lorrie Gallant, which offered a powerful and poignant account of the horrific abuses suffered there, and testimony from five survivors. It was a moving, at times disturbing, but valuable way to understand the facts about what happened at residential schools.

In an extended question-and-answer session with Ashkewe that followed the video tour, he addressed possible reparations and accountability for residential school abuses; how we might move towards reconciliation; including residential school history in our current scholastic curriculum in Ontario; and more.

To find out more about what happened at the former Mohawk Institute Residential School, click here. To register for a viewing of the video, click here. To donate to the Woodland Cultural Centre, click here.