"This show highlights our frailties and our anguish in the face of the new millennium," says Franco Dragone, director of Cirque du Soleil's latest show, Quidam. His words are more prophetic than one might think; in its third year of touring, this show may well continue into the next millennium. With record-setting attendance figures and an average 96 percent occupancy, the Cirque clearly has another successful show to follow in the footsteps of their previous efforts.

We first met with the talented musicians of Cirque du Soleil five years ago, just prior to the first show from their Alegría tour (see Roland Users Group v12/n2). We were so impressed that we wanted to find out what they had in store for Quidam, a brand new show with a brand new composer. Claude Chaput is again band leader but, along with the music, most of the musicians and instrumentation has changed. With only a single week off between ending the Alegría show and starting the task of arranging and sound design for composer Benoît Jutras' Quidam score, Chaput was right back at it again.

"My role for Quidam was much larger," explains Claude. "Quidam is bigger in terms of music than Alegría. The style is more eclectic. In Alegría there were many emotional, almost pop songs. Quidam [because of its theme]... is perhaps a bit more dramatic."

This change in focus is facilitated to a large extent by the musical equipment available to them. "Alegría had a more human feel and a jazz influence," explains Chaput. "In Quidam, there are a lot of sequences -- the sounds are more industrial." The use of sequences in a performance of this nature is made possible by a Roland XP-80 Music Workstation and its Realtime Phrase Sequencing (RPS) functions. Chaput continues, "Before RPS, [sequencing] was impossible. In Alegría, I refused to use sequencers because one can never know what will happen in a live performance such as this."

The Cirque's astounding vignettes are so intricate and complex that they can vary in time by a few minutes, so there is no way to set the music in stone -- or into a standard sequencer. But the XP-80's RPS capabilities have solved this problem, allowing Cirque musicians to trigger pre-sequenced phrases in realtime. "I use RPS about 80 percent of the time," Chaput continues. "I program a sequence to a key, so I can then count the band in 'One, Two, Three...' and then go. Now I can finally follow the performers with a sequencer."

In addition to its RPS capabilities, Claude uses his pair of XP-80's to control his rack of five S-760 Digital Samplers and a JD-990 Synthesizer Module. "I have two XP-80's, so that one can be used as my master keyboard and the other is available for triggering RPS sequences," Chaput explains. "There's often an overlap between songs in the show, so this capability is incredibly important. I can hit one button on the XP-80 and, in a fraction of a second, everything is set up for me."

Not only is the ability to follow the performers an important aspect of a Cirque performance but, of course, so are the sounds. "I was involved in about 50 percent of the sound design," says Chaput of his collaboration with Benoît Jutras. "We did all this on Roland S-760 samplers, [using] a lot of sounds from the Orchestral family CD-ROM. We also use the World, Pop, Orchestral and Keyboards of the '60s & '70s expansion boards for the XP-80's."

Another instrument that is making its debut in a Cirque du Soleil performance is Roland's VG-8 V-Guitar System. "On a couple of songs I play bass on my guitar with the VG-8," laughs Claude. "Actually my guitar has only a single pickup, the GK-2A. When I'm playing guitar I use a remote Roland FC-200 to trigger the RPS sequences." The VG-8 is also used extensively by the band's guitarist and lone American, Robin Fink. "Under the tent it would be a nightmare to use acoustic instruments," he explains. "With the VG-8 I can cover these types of sounds perfectly."

The VG-8 is also responsible for many of the bizarre industrial sounds that form the core of this post-industrial score. "Ninety percent of the time Robin is not playing anything you would recognize as a guitar," explains Claude. "He does a lot of bowing effects and pads. To be honest, a synth pad is a synth pad -- we've all heard them before -- but when it comes out of the VG-8, it's really something different."

As for the other musicians rounding out the band, drummer George Bertrand plays an acoustic kit, "but you never hear it" explains Chaput, as Bertrand is using it along with his SPD-11 Total Percussion Pad to trigger samples in his own S-760 sampler. The band also features a second keyboardist, Eric Plante, who divides his time between saxophone and an XP-80 keyboard, as well as two cellists and a violinist.

Quidam is nearing the end of its three-year North American tour. You can catch the show in New York as of April 8th; Chicago as of July 22nd; Washington D.C. as of September 17th; and Atlanta as of October 29th. As with all Cirque du Soleil shows, you'll have to see Quidam to believe it. And now that you know the story behind the music you'll be hearing, it'll be even more impressive.