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Received in the luxurious salons of the Argentine Embassy, the young Orbis Ensemble dedicated to contemporary music gives its first Parisian concert with seven pieces for soloist or small ensemble.
They are four instrumentalists (flute, saxophone, accordion and percussion), two female composers and one male composer, all from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse (CNSMD) in Lyon, where some are still finishing their training. Under the artistic direction of the Argentinean composer, guitarist and video artist Demian Rudel Rey, Orbis (Compass in Latin) was created in 2021 and has just completed a residency in Portugal.
The concert begins with energy and amplified sound with Átropos, a piece for saxophone, percussion and electronics by Argentine composer Rocio Cano Valiño, co-founder of the ensemble, who is at the helm of the electronic device this evening. The percussion set is rich, with a central vibraphone and numerous small percussion instruments in the hands of Louis Quiles, who contributes to the timbre with saxophonist Yui Sakagoshi. It is she, via a trigger pedal, who manages the electronic processing. After a very eruptive first part, the second part is oriented towards a noisier sound, rubbing, blowing, slaps of the saxophone, in an intimate and poetic atmosphere to which contributes the touch of the brooms on the vibraphone blades. The title Dots, lines and roughness byElsa Justel, synthesizes the work of goldsmith on the sound morphologies that this acousmatic piece (which passes through the loudspeakers) gives us to hear, whose diffusion on two speakers and at too low a speed does not, unfortunately, do justice. The flutist Fanny Martin puts all her energy and reactivity in Philippe Hurel 's virtuoso pieceEolia soliciting the breath but also the voice of the interpreter: it is a kind of imaginary story full of jumps and twists which engages the whole body of the interpreter and keeps us in suspense until the final point.
The Orbis Ensemble commissioned Lisa Heute, accordionist and composer, to perform her own piece, Cantique du serpent, alongside her three partners, Fanny Martin, Yui Sakagoshi and Louis Quiles. The writing generates a slowly evolving framework maintained by the different timbres that compose it and a moving space that modifies the colors and constantly renews the texture in a stretched temporality.
Franck Bedrossian's Bossa nova , which Lisa Heute plays right after, emphasizes the contrast, articulating the sound gestures in a tightened time and a heterogeneous and uneven space. We go from the saturated sound to the noises generated by the percussions on the instrument and the guiro (scraping) effect on the bellows. The high-pitched sounds evoke the electronic frequencies, a universe of reference for the composer in this score very well defended by our interpreter.
One wonders about the meaning of the title Retour du Rite (Return of the Rite ) byAlex Nante, another Argentinian composer on the evening's program. In this piece for soprano saxophone, Nante proceeds to a whimsical and obstinate exploration of the instrument's sound spectrum, with an elegant and chiseled way of writing that Yui Sakagoshi renders with the same finesse.
The last piece, Cuélebre, by Demian Rudel Rey, for flute, saxophone, accordion, percussion, electronics and video, is conducted by the composer and performed tonight without the visual support. Rudel Rey likes to draw his inspiration from remote worlds, from antiquity for his opera What is love? or the Hispanic mythologies for this Cuélebre. It refers to a winged creature found in the Celtic regions of Spain. Its body is scaly, of green and red color. When it reaches gigantic proportions and its scales become as hard as iron, it flies to the sea to dive into its depths and watch over the numerous treasures that are hidden there: so many fantastic images that will generate a profuse writing, full of rhythmic projections, evocative colors mixed with electronics and streaked with saturated rocket sounds. This sonorous and luxuriant jungle, carried to summits of intensity, is maintained by a very active percussion. It is her, in the white noise of the rubbed skins and the pixels of the flute, which ends the piece, very mysteriously...
Young and already very seasoned, the members of Orbis impress us with their talent and the musical and scenic commitment displayed in this demanding program that takes us from one shore to the other, between rhythmic frenzy and colorful spectrum. They will perform on February 9 at the Pôle Pixel in Lyon, as part of the season of Grame, Centre National de Création Musicale (CNCM) which is celebrating its fortieth anniversary this year.
Michèle Tosi
Embassy of Argentina in Paris, 26-01-2023
Rocio Cano Valiño (b. 1991): Átropos for saxophone, percussion and electronics; Elsa Justel (b. 1944): Dots, lines and roughness, for electronics; Philippe Hurel (b. 1955): Eolia for flute; Lisa Heute (b. 1991): Cantique du Serpent, for flute, saxophone, accordion and percussion; Franck Bedrossian (b. 1971): Bossa Nova for accordion; Alex Nante (b. 1992): Retour du Rite, for soprano saxophone; Demian Rudel Rey (b. 1987): Cuélebre, for small ensemble. Ensemble Orbis : Fanny Martin, flute ; Yui Sakagoshi, saxophone ; Lisa Heute, accordion ; Louis Quiles, percussion ; Rocío Cano Valiño, electronics ; Demian Rudel Rey, direction.
