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BOUGE-TREMBLÉ is a summit meeting orchestrated by Guillaume Bourgogne between the worlds of Eve Risser and Guilhem Meier with the desire to finally collaborate with these two extraordinary artists. Risser and Meier are both composers and instrumentalists with atypical profiles and wide open ears. Evolving in unclassifiable and hybrid aesthetics, their research often involves the "preparation" of their instruments, the piano and the percussion, which then become true extensions of the sound domain. Navigating between jazz and written music, both contemporary and classical, both have a rich musical writing that is particularly interested in timbre and space.
BOUGÉ-TREMBLÉ is a dialogue work where the artists are also involved as performers and play together for the first time.
The piece by the composer and improviser Eve Risserfor prepared upright piano and 8 instruments, is a co-commission between Grame, Centre National de Création Musicale de Lyon and Hémisphère son.
The composer 's work Guilhem Meier, a creation for prepared drums and 8 instruments, received the Aide à l'écriture of the Ministry of Culture.
This piece was presented at the B!ME - Biennale of exploratory music - organized by the Grame in Lyon on March 21, 2022.
"I always start from my piano solo when writing for a large ensemble. Indeed,"Footsteps on the Snow" inspired me with timbres, pitches and intensities, resulting in the White Desert Orchestra. Then, in my last solo, "After a Dream", I gave back space to rhythm and pulse, which I had left out of my solo "timbral meditations". This gave rise to the Red Desert Orchestra, which draws its inspiration from West African music, with the musicians of Nainy Diabate (Mali) or Les sœurs Hié and Oumarou Bambara (France/Burkina).
In order to move from the piano to the ensemble, I create singular materials that all fit together and present themselves in the form of a puzzle that gives rise to possible collective arrangements. The world of dreams and emotions remains the playground from which I draw all musical intentions. Then it is during meetings with the musicians beforehand that the writing becomes more precise. I always proceed in situ when I write for groups that are not my own. Eve Risser
To listen here:
BOUGÉ - TREMBLÉ from Ensemble Op.Cit on Vimeo.
For Guilhem MeierThis writing project intends to mix my solo LFant with the Op.Cit ensemble. I intend to exploit the fundamental elements of my solo (improvisation, electrification, free singing) for the construction of the piece, which requires a device of microphones and amplification for certain acoustic instruments, the use of the voice for certain musicians, as well as a share of improvisation. A game of spatialization between acoustic sound and amplification could be developed. My piece will deal with the impossible quest for freedom within the framework of an institution, inspired by historical cases where governments or leaders have been overthrown by the people. I will focus on the mechanism of the need to federate, then to dominate, and on the breaking point of this domination where the need for freedom takes over, before giving way to a new need to federate, thus repeating the same pattern. The readings of Noam Chomsky, Ryszard Kapuscinski and Tchouang-tseu feed these thoughts. I would be inspired by revolutionary songs, popular federative songs that can have the face of freedom as well as that of indoctrination. The electrified sound will contain the expressive force of mental distortion that indoctrination creates, but paradoxically can also represent the processes of liberation of the individual, and the mechanisms of creation through destruction. Improvisation will also contain this paradox of being both the element of freedom and also the one that follows the rails of a writing-dictatorship that imposes its framework. Coming from a musical culture that is at the same time rock, classical, contemporary or jazz, my writing is based on a group music, aiming to form a singular entity. Nourished as much by Ligeti as by Nirvana, my musical language navigates as well in the chiselled combinations of timbres as in the savagery of a primary rhythm.
Guillaume Bourgogne
Conductor and artistic and musical director
He is the founder and artistic director of the ensemble Op.Cit, whose atypical artistic line brings together composed music and improvisation.
Today he is a professor at McGill University (Montreal - Canada) and artistic director of the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble. He is also musical director of the ensemble Cairn (Paris) with composer Jérôme Combier, with whom he has recorded several critically acclaimed CDs: Pays de vent (Motus) and Vies silencieuses (æon) by Jérôme Combier, Lieu & Non-Lieux by Thierry Blondeau (æon) and Furia by Raphaël Cendo (æon).
He was Principal Conductor of the Camerata Aberta (Sao Paulo - Brazil) from 2010 to 2014. He has conducted numerous ensembles and orchestras in France and abroad. The CD Water mirror, received the Bravo! award for best classical music CD in 2012.
Op.Cit Ensemble
Op.Cit, Orchestre pour la Cité, is a protean ensemble that ventures into fertile grounds at the crossroads of traditional classical repertoire and improvised music. Each collaboration is a new quest for the unheard of and emotions.
Its musicians are grouped around two centers of gravity: the string quartet, and a trio formed by the piano, the double bass and the drums. The Ensemble's approach, initiated by its conductor and artistic director Guillaume Bourgogne, is to listen to the contemporary world and its different modes of artistic expression. For its creations, it surrounds itself with soloists coming from classical as well as jazz, electronic or traditional music, as well as artists coming from dance, theater, plastic and digital arts.
With : Pierre Horksman, clarinets - Clélia Bobichon, clarinets - Jean-Philippe Cochenet, horn - Eric Le Chartier, trombone - Gaël Rassaert, violin - Nicolas Cerveau, cello - Brice Berred, double bass.
Also read this interview of Guillaume Kosmicki with Eve Risser made for the B!ME here.
