Alienfest Music Festival in ABTP-Temiskaming | A group was deprogrammed for criticism of the Horn Foundry

“I am the horn and its chimneys / The black plague, the last judgment / With no mercy to the insects on the ground / I am death, Karma”, he specifically sings. ParasitesA piece from the album GlencorruptionIts title refers to Glencore, the Anglo-Swiss multinational owner of the horn foundry.

In his message to Simon Turcotte, dated March 26, organizer Francis Pepin says he has “no choice but to include Kuhn Twee in the Alienfest 2024 programming.”

Six days later, on the 1st^{There is} In April, the festival was canceled altogether, citing “conflicts of interest between our sponsors and participants,” the organization said in a press release, Radio-Canada reported – Pres Francis Pepin could not be reached for this press release and did not respond to requests sent to him through various channels.

“Outre” singer

Simon Turcotte says he was “furious” when he was invited back in November after his group was canceled from the third annual Alienfest festival.

“It's very worrying for culture, for the funding of culture, for other artists,” he said Pres.

Horn Foundry insists it is not involved in the matter in any way, with spokeswoman Cindy Couette saying the company “has nothing to do with the Alienfest festival and is not aware of what is going on. The music group has been accused. [Guhn Twei] ».

Regardless of whether Horn Foundry intervenes or not, Simon Turcotte believes: “The sponsor is so afraid of offending a business partner that they decide to remove us from their festival and then cancel their festival, which is huge. »

Ironically, the band addresses this issue in their song Melt the water : “Apologetics of genocide/The collective mask/Their profits are more valuable than our lives”

Simon Turcotte's decision to alienfest is difficult to explain, as he has performed with his two musical groups, Kuhn Twee and Tumers, at other events in the region, including the Emerging Music Festival in Abitibi-Temiskamingu. Sponsored by Horn Foundry.

He also performed in the 2023 touring musical Au pays pic-ups.

“We played on the Horn Foundry pitch,” he says. We were in front of fences and chimneys. »

precedents

This is not the first time that criticism of the Horn Foundry has been excluded from cultural events, the Kuhn Twee group, which is concerned about freedom of expression in the region, recalled.

The Horn Foundry ended funding for the Rouen-Noranda Exhibition Center in 2005, which it had supported for years because of a “controversial exhibit,” Radio-Canada reported at the time.

Exhibition of work by artist Véronique Doucet normally Criticized the company and was concerned about the impact of its polluting emissions on the health and environment of the surrounding population.

Even the now popular documentary NorandaDirected by Daniel Korvec and Robert Mondari and narrated by Richard Desjardins, it was excluded from the Abidibi-Temiskaming International Film Festival when it was released in 1984, as Pierre Serre recounts in his book Journey to the end of the tunnelPublished in the fall by Écosociété.

“It must be said that the festival received a subsidy from the Naranda Mines,” he wrote, and Daniel Korvec was arrested by the police for unpaid fines on the evening of the film's premiere at the Théâtre du Copper.