Lisa Bielawa (USA) and Thierry Pécou (France)
Encounter between two composers-performers and two continents
Ritual cries, cries of love or pain, cries for help... Cries are the expression of a basic language shared by all human beings as well as a majority of animals. This program is not only a celebration of cries as a vital force, from Lisa Bielawa’s highly expressive vocalisations to the erotic cries of these Les Machines désirantes / Desiring Machines, but also an encounter between two composers-performers (Pécou from France and Bielawa from the USA) who will interpret their own works in complicity with the Ensemble Variances, leading thus to a real exchange between their respective continents.
The heart of the concert will be a work by each composer, each following the same pattern: a concertino-like piece for a soloist accompanied by the instruments of the Ensemble Variances (flute, clarinet, saxophone, violin, cello and piano). Bielawa will sing the solo vocal parts of her new work herself while Pécou will play the solo piano parts of his Les Machines désirantes. Bielawa’s piece is a new work comissioned by Radio France for the Ensemble Variances. Pécou’s piece is a reprise of a previous piece composed in 2009, also commissioned by Radio France.
This program celebrates the cry as a vital force transcended as a musical gesture, expressed in an explicit and conscient way particulary in the works of Bielawa and Pécou; and by allusion in Sequenza for sax of Berio, or Birimbao/Jaguar of Paul Desenne. Canadian composer Walter Boudreau wrote, for Ensemble Variances, a new instrumentation of Claude Vivier’s Hymne an die Nacht: the program finishes with this great cry in the night, paying hommage to the composer whose whole work discusses the cry and during the 30th anniversary of his premature death in 1983.
Videos
Pictures
Program
Lisa Bielawa
Gargoyles for solo flute
Luciano Berio
Sequenza VIIb for solo saxophone
Lisa Bielawa
Incessabili Voce for voice, clarinet, saxophone, violin, cello and piano
Commissioned by Radio France
Paul Desenne
Birimbao / Jaguar for solo cello
Thierry Pécou
Les Machines désirantes for piano, flute, clarinet, saxophone, violin and cello
Claude Vivier
Hymne an die Nacht for voice and ensemble
New version by Walter Bourdreau
The cast
Guest artist
Lisa Bielawa (USA) composer-vocalist
Staging and lighting concepts
Stephan Grögler
Ensemble Variances
Anne Cartel flute
Carjez Gerretsen clarinet
Nicolas Prost saxophone
Liana Gourdjia violin
David Louwerse violoncello
Thierry Pécou piano
Informations
Co-production Ensemble Variances, Radio France, Arsenal de Metz. In partnership with Institut Français. With the support of Spedidam. This concert is supported by the The French Interregional Touring Charter : ONDA, ARCADI, OARA, ODIA Normandie, Réseau en scène - Languedoc-Roussillon et Spectacle vivant en Bretagne from September 2014 to December 2015.