Luc Beauséjour presents a public lecture exploring one of Western music's most celebrated and often misunderstood forms: the fugue. Often regarded as intellectually forbidding, the fugue is reframed here as a dramatic soundscape in which multiple voices pursue, respond to, and intersect with one another, much like characters in a play.
Through carefully chosen musical examples, Beauséjour walks the audience through the structural rules of the fugue before demonstrating how Bach consistently transcends those rules to generate genuine emotional power. The session aims to make counterpoint approachable and to show why Bach remains the undisputed master of the form centuries after his death.
The event is part of the Off-Festival Bach strand of Festival Bach Montréal 2026 and takes place at 3487 Boul. Saint-Laurent in Montreal.