Ars Numerica: electronic music honoured by the AIRS Duo
This week at Le Vivier, come and discover Ars Numerica by the Duo AIRS, with Louis-Philippe Bonin (saxophone) and David Therrien brongo (percussion). The duo will perform works by several composers. We met some of them who agreed to talk to us about their creation.
Benjamin Lavastre, Creation, 2023 for karlax, saxophone and electronics
"With the karlax, I try to fill a kind of gap between instrumental and electronic music. It is both a digital instrument and a gestural controller thanks to its various sensors. It gives body to electronic music but also brings a scenic and physical presence.
In this project with Duo AIRS, I wanted to give the karlax a real identity. That it is not just an accompanying instrument. It's a way of offering an imaginary percussion set to David Therrien Brongo.
Alithéa Ripoll, Extraction - blurred with black, 2023 - creation
"This is a rather black work, around a poem whose words are diffuse... scrambled! A dark and raw emotion that can also be perceived in sounds with a metallic and distorted taste. This choice is combined with David Therrien Brongo's willingness to use metals, which is quite typical in his percussion playing. As for the saxophone, moving from alto to soprano, his playing types are quite varied, starting from a uniform sound to increasingly complex and rich sounds. His playing is amplified by percussion and electronics. But also his own voice.
Indeed, the instrumentalists put themselves slightly on stage in this piece, through words that come out with great difficulty and the false dialogues they try to exchange, always inspired by the poem. A challenge that is not always obvious for instrumentalists who are not used to playing anything other than music!
For my part, what is new in my compositional approach via this project is the work on sound spatialisation. As the piece was performed in the MMR room of the CIRMMT, the challenge was to immerse the audience in this sound bubble made possible by the technical installations of this very special place. Once again, the poem inspired me to create the sound movements that would come to life around the audience and provoke this sensation of immersion, blurred and dirty.
For more information on the Multimedia Room (MMR) at CIRMMT: https://www.cirmmt.org/fr/facilities
The evening's programme also includes a creation by Frédéric Le Bel, ...que par un être dont le coeur bat..., and the work of Elzbieta Sikora, Axe Rouge II.
We look forward to seeing you all on Thursday 18 May, in the Multimedia Room (MMR) of the CIRMMT. Tickets are still available here: ticketing.
Article written by Typhaine Allain
