time, including at the Collège Montmorency in Laval, the Université de Montréal, and the University of Ottawa. The composer would tell an interviewer that he was "not liked" at Montmorency, and was described by a peer to be "a catastrophe" of a teacher. Vivier's time at the University of Ottawa was considerably more rewarding; In 1975 he was placed in charge of the university's foremost contemporary ensemble, Atelier de musique contemporaine. His teaching contract lasted for the seven months from October 1975 to April 1976, and was paid hourly at a rate of approximately $20. He would frequently commute by bus from his apartment in Montreal to the music department in Ottawa. Ethnomusicological journeys From late 1976 to early 1977, Vivier spent some time travelling to Egypt, Japan, Iran, Thailand, Singapore and Bali to document the musicology of these regions. The differing musical cultures and traditions he encountered easily infiltrated his own compositional style; the most prominent change was his newfound fixation with more complex rhythms. His piano piece Shiraz (1977), named after the eponymous Iranian city, contains a flurry of interlocking rhythmic combinations and pulses at great speed. Vivier was inspired to write the piece after listening to two blind singers perform in the city's market square. He wrote in the piece's program notes how he found Shiraz to be, "a pearl of a city, a diamond vigorously cut". The visit to Singapore was described in his journal with the three words, "Bells: joy. ecstasy." He visitied kabuki theatres in the Tokyo area and was struck by the ritual-like nature of both the music and physical performance. Zipangu (1980) was later written as a Japanese-infused work for string orchestra, with elements of South Indian Carnatic music (including dronal imitation of the tanbur, rhythmic tala, further raga manipulation and chalanata) – the name of the piece is taken from a former and antiquated exonym for Japan, roughly translated to mean "the land of sunrise". Zipangu is considered by many to be the composer's most aggressive and "unforgiving" piece, as it features a plethora of extended techniques for strings (i.e. snap pizzicato and bow overpressure) and denser harmonic content atop a complex melody, similar to the string compositions of Krzysztof Penderecki. Bali was where he spent the most time, meticulously analyzing the traditional gamelan of the region, and attempting to learn their native language. Vivier kept an incredibly detailed notebook where