by RAF KATIGBAK

There are probably not a lot of jazz musicians who can claim to be influenced by both Schubert and Squarepusher, but Montreal composer Ben Shemie can.

With the work "Back to Plaster," Shemie's Blink BlinkBlink project proposes a melding of two worlds, European classical music and dancefloor electronica, complete with laptop beats and an 18-piece string orchestra. "Playing with a live orchestra is a total trip," explains the 25-year-old Westmount native excitedly. "Especially when you ask for more dynamics, and when you just raise your arm, this wave of sound comes up!"

Shemie has reason to be excited. After graduating from McGill's jazz program last year, this will be his first major work performed for the public. "Through all these classes at McGill, I really got into some of the modern classical stuff, like Gorecki and Avro Part. It sounded like movie music. It's orchestrated in such a way that when you listen to it, it really hits a nerve. When I got all the scores from the library, I found out that it's really quite simple stuff, almost pop music. Not like Beethoven, which is very strict."

Frustrated by the confines of academic music and spurred on by an extra-curricular fascination with electronic music, specifically seminal IDM label Warp Records, Shemie strove to reconcile the two sounds in a live context. "I've wanted to do electronic-based music for a long time, but I didn't have the background of a techno producer. I didn't even really know how they did it!"

It wasn't until Shemie moved to Berlin in the summer of 2004 that his idea came to fruition. "I got really lucky and met the right people and got into the Berlin club scene. I got to immerse myself in stuff I'd heard about before but never really experienced - hard techno, house, minimal. Originally, I wanted to do a piece based on just drum & bass, which is fast yet fundamentally slow, but after hearing all this other music, I thought, I can't not put that stuff in!"

With DJs Deliz, Dave O'Brien and Sarcastic at Main Hall on Saturday, March 19, 10 p.m., $5

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