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Postponed until next October due to health restrictions, the premiere of composer Pedro García-Velásquez's new work is sure to surprise many!
The premiere was scheduled for January 29, 2020, in Paris...
Fortunately, a new date was quickly found by the Athénée theater. It will be in October. In the autumn, Le Balcon ensemble will perform for the first time in public, Words and Music in the version by Colombian-French composer Pedro Garcia-Velasquez. For Words and Music is the name of a radio play by the British king of the absurd: Samuel Beckett, father of the long-awaited Godot. Written in 1962, the play features three characters: Croak, the lonely squire of a non-existent castle, in whose head his two imaginary servants converse; Words, played by an actor; and Music, whose role is entrusted, unprecedentedly, not to an actor, but to an instrumental ensemble. At first, Words and Music don't like each other: they bicker incessantly. But as the play progresses, Words learns to sing...
The score for Words and Music has already gone through several versions: one by John Beckett, a cousin of the playwright, another by Humphrey Searle and finally one by Morton Feldman. These three compositions offer very different interpretations of Music's character and overall atmosphere.
Feldman's version, composed in 1987, lasts 25 minutes.
The Le Balcon ensemble, co-founded by Pedro Garcia Velasquez, explored Feldman's version in 2013. Le Balcon, directed by Maxime Pascal, has the particularity of being an amplified instrumental ensemble. I was deeply inspired by this piece," explains the composer. The notion of an imaginary place, with this strange and intriguing castle, allowed us, at the time, to play with electronics, sound design... We totally tripped!" Following this experience, Pedro Garcia Velasquez composed his " Théâtre acoustique ", a cycle of immersive pieces in which he explores the possibilities of 3D sound, to take the listener-spectator to the edge of reality, to the frontier between music and ambiences, soundscapes.
Listen with headphones!
In 2019, Pedro Garcia-Velasquez returns to Beckett and takes the plunge: he composes his own version of Words and Music, which lasts around 45 minutes. The musician further explores the notion of a third place, a place nestled on the edge of the imaginary, a place that twists and transforms according to the character's tensions and anxieties. A little like Julien Gracq's eternally mysterious Château d'Argol... In Pedro Garcia Velasquez's new version, the place is represented by electronics, complementing the orchestra and, in a bold move, a network of robotic arms: three are positioned on stage alongside the ten musicians, the others scattered around the auditorium, even in the balcony boxes! Each arm is a musician and taps on rudimentary sculptures, sometimes made of blown glass, sometimes of steel, sometimes of stone... All materials evoking, why not, a ruined castle.
Samuel Beckett set to music by Pedro García-Velásquez at the Institut Giacometti from Fondation Giacometti on Vimeo.
This new version is directed by Jacques Osinski, a leading specialist in Beckett's theater. On stage, the orchestra Le Balcon plays Music, alongside Jean-Claude Frissung as Croak and Johan Leysen as Words.
After this appetizer, come to the Théâtre de l'Athénée from October 8 to 10, 2021 to discover the new music of a radio play turned chamber opera, an undeniably dreamlike experience that opens wide the doors of the imagination.
Suzanne Gervais
