End of year show at LCC

wednesday 11th june
drinks from 6 pm
programme from 7pm

Media School
London College of Communication
Elephant & Castle

LONDON SE1 6SB

The corrupted role of the musician

...The last aspect of this compositional process that really grabbed my attention was the fact that the traditional role of the musician is totally corrupted. The musician has to let the instrument play on its own, still he will act on the shape of the Theremin's sound. Then, becomes a very careful listener when he records the environmental and the instrumental sounds. After, he becomes a technician when he switches on the machines and an explorer when he has to set up this installation in the forest...
Have a look at the installation through this short video composed of raw footages mixed with some birds and wind sounds...

The environment and his compositional role

...The aspect I really appreciated to explore and discover, was the sort of dialectic that built all through the composition between the instrument and its environment. The pitch and the volume of the Theremin changed with the movement of the tree branches. Now, I think that the environment in this piece was an essential motor in the process of composition. My role was only to find a place for the instrument to seat properly on trees, sometimes I changed the shape of the wave or its brightness and of course I was there to listen to every little detail and record the situation simultaneously. Sometimes I was wondering if there was a response from the environment to the presence of the instrument and myself...

Musical artifact in nature

Recordings of the theremin as part as a soundscape composition.

...In the same kind of idea I wanted to introduce a musical instrument in nature and then introduce the notion of artifact in nature. At some point it led me to explore different degrees of paradox -which is a recurrent idea in my work-, illustrated by the electronic sound of the machine opposed to the organic sounds of the wind between the tree leaves or the birds and also the image of the metallic antennas inside the tree branches...

Natural figured bass expressed through a Theremin

The natural figured bass expressed through a Theremin is a project grounded in a very specific cultural frame. It is inspired from the technique of the figured bass, which was used in all genres of music during the Baroque period and consist, shortly, in having a bass part played all through a composition.
Moreover, the fact that improvised organ accompaniments for choral works were common by the late 16th century, let me imagine that I could experiment this technique with any kind of instrument, voice or sounds, as a free personal interpretation. This is why I allowed myself to transpose this 16th-17th century art to our contemporary period.
Then, I have chosen to use a Theremin in this composition and introduce this musical artefact in a natural environment, in the forest. This idea is in relation to the introduction of electronic instruments in the classical orchestra and contemporary music during the first half of the 20th century.