A jack-of-all-trades brimming with vitality, Mickaël Bernard is only 27 years old, but claims to have already done "every job" connected with the shows and creations in which he evolves: usher, stage manager, visual artist, radio man - he's been hosting a show on Radio Campus Paris for the past three years -, designer and composer. Today, he heads a collective called Les Absentéistes (those who are always wrong), and talks to us about his concept of the "ephemeral score", which exists only in the moment of the concert.

Mickaël, you're interested in both music and the visual arts. How did you get into music and composition?
Above all, I like to break down the barriers between the arts, to shatter the glass, however transparent, that separates them. I come from the world of techno and amplified music. But now I practically only make acoustic music, with performers who give me ideas and the impetus to compose.

Are you an instrumentalist yourself?
I played the flute at the beginning of my training, then I took up the piano, and I also paint: a world that continually nourishes me and plays a major role in my composing activities, which I'm currently pursuing alongside Jonathan Pontier at the CRR 93.

A teacher who gives you carte blanche, you say, himself an ardent defender of artistic decompartmentalization and cross-disciplinary projects...
While channeling my desires, he knows how to encourage my projects and allows me to follow through on my ideas, even at the risk of sometimes crossing the boundaries of the institution where he teaches.

I'd like you to tell us a little more about the genesis of the Partition-installation aux pétales, which you consider to be one of your greatest successesto date...
The story is quite beautiful, in fact; it's linked to one of my food activities, which consists in handing out box keys to conductors at Radio France. A bouquet of roses had been left behind in one of the artist's boxes, which I took home; it caught my eye and I began to distribute the flower petals one by one on the carpet that serves as a support for my installations, realizing quite quickly that each petal could have a sound identity: I had come up with the idea of my trio piece for the end-of-year concert at the conservatory.

What was the next step?
I had to explain the concept to the instrumentalists - Armand Angster (clarinet), Christelle Séry (electric guitar) and Christophe Beau (cello), musicians with the Accroche Note ensemble, who are not new to the business, and whom I had to convince of the merits of the undertaking.

Did the installed score appeal to them?
We had to decide together on the instrumental colors and modes of play according to the position of the petals and the trajectory they would draw on the carpet, as well as adjusting the interventions, crossfades and superimpositions of the three instruments. And despite the cellist's initial misgivings, they played along, putting all their talent into making this new flower, created just for them, bloom.

What was the audience's reaction?
It's worth pointing out that the performance was accompanied by a lighting design that put the spotlight on the carpet, a sort of blazing hearth around which the three performers and the people taking part in the ceremony moved like shadows. I sincerely believe that the proposal - to be invited to an experience that altered their listening habits - appealed to them.

After the performance, was the symbolic value of your gesture understood?
Once the performance was over - there were no photos or videos - I lifted the carpet and removed all traces of the "installed score". But I hadn't really scripted the gesture: which isn't the case for this other performance, rehearsed on the terrace of the CRR in Aubervilliers and performed during the second edition of our Absence festival.

What exactly are we talking about?
The dimensions are still modest, but my partner Gilles Roulleaux Dugage and I can congratulate ourselves on having attracted over 100 people in a single day in June 2022, and 200 for the second edition on October 23. The event takes place in a painter's studio, at 24 place Sainte-Marthe in the 10th arrondissement of Paris, where the music doesn't resound every day. The artist's canvases hang there, along with those of other painters I've invited to exhibit. As for the program, it combines encounters, concerts and performances by musicians and poets alike, linking words with music.

Once again, your performance is inspired by painting...
I really liked a painting by the artist Ana Krichashvili, who painted a whole environment of small colored bubbles while closing her eyes. I kept the idea and called the piece "Eyes closed". It lasts exactly 8'11'', features eight singers and is divided into eight parts punctuated by micro-events (left to the imagination of each). The counterpoint of the eight lines, sung on phonemes and according to pitch cues, is the result of numerical speculations that will not be revealed. The score will be torn up at the end of the concert, and each performer will leave with a piece of paper: the score-event, which I like very much, is a variation on what I call the ephemeral, or installed, score.

Isn't it a shame to see your work fall to pieces? Do you ever feel like keeping certain scores?
I have indeed kept my string quartet. But I don't really like the concept of a work. It's a well-known fact that many well-written scores were played only once at the time of their creation and will never be heard again. I prefer to focus on the here and now, to conceive, destroy and... start again.

Interview by Michèle Tosi

Photos Ana Krichashvili © 2021 | Created By Integral Web Studio.