This project received support from the “support and reception of artists, culture and information professionals in exile” scheme of the European and International Affairs Sub-Directorate. Feuillages also benefits from the support of Sacem and Spedidam.

Feuillages strives to allow us to listen and understand what a musical gesture is and how the composers of the 20th century and today set out to write it, to represent it and by what most inventive processes they found ways to represent the sounds they heard graphically or typographically. Feuillages is the poetic image of these scores, of these notations where hidden gestures are contained, far from traditional music theory. This Ensemble Cairn project aims to highlight the gestures and notations of these incredible sounds.

Feuillages is based around the music of Julien Malaussena and Dmitri Kourliandski who are the two composers in residence within the Cairn ensemble during the 2023-24 season.

This project is a continuation of the Ensemble(s) Festival in which Ivry students have been participating for four years now and more precisely the partnership that the Festival has engaged with the flute and clarinet classes, having been during the last four years the place of creation of the pieces of the cycle “Flute of the blackbird, whistle of the toads” published by Editions Lemoine. 

Feuillages will completely combine the interpretations of young musicians and the interpretations of Cairn musicians in a form of dialogue around works written specifically for them, and across generations. Also, Dmitri Kourliandski’s Openlab project which will close this concert, offers young performers wishing to explore free, graphic notations, thus exploring free sound material entering into dialogue with an electronic device controlled by the composer.

OPENLAB FOR YOUNG MUSICIANS

Openlab offers an interaction experience with the use of open form, graphic and sound scores and improvisation. Such an experience contributes to the development of young musicians who are interested in the field of contemporary musical interpretation. The first presentation of the laboratory took place in November 2022 at Luzern Hochschule (Switzerland) as part of the Step across the border project. The laboratory is structured around two projects by Dmitri Kourliandski: Maps of non-existent cities and Insoluble acoustic cases. 

Started in 2014, the cycle Maps of non-existent cities by Dmitri Kourliandski is produced in open and graphic notation and develops ideas of psycho-geography through musical writing. The exploration of sounds through a labyrinth of possibilities opens a field of interactions and decisions which directly construct a kind of formal process. The other cycle – Insoluble Acoustic Cases – is a series of auditory scores where the pre-recorded sound material becomes a source of imitations and interactions for the performers.

The combination of these two approaches gives rise to a large-scale “live” improvisation set where the musicians, in dialogue with live electronics, discover the nature of the different interactions between sound and form, between instrumental playing and electronics.

Program

1] Prelude to the killing :: Philippe Drogoz (1973 – 6mn)

For guitar

2] Creation :: Raphaèle Biston (3mn)

For flute (young performer from the Ivry-sur-Seine conservatory)

Screening of the animated score (video)

3] Exigüe (contiguous) :: Julien Malaussena (2022 – 6mn)

For guitar, violin, viola, cello (slideshow)

4] Foliage :: Julien Malaussena (3mn)

For flute and smartphone (young performer from the Ivry-sur-Seine conservatory)

5] Articulation :: Gyorgy Ligeti (1958 – 4mn)

For soundtrack

Screening of the animated score created by Rainer Wehinger (video)

6] Catalogue de l’inaudible :: Dmitri Kourliandski (2024 – 9mn)

for accordion, violin, viola and cello

7] Mélodie ? :: Dmitri Kourliandski (2024 – 3mn)

For clarinet (young performer from the Ivry-sur-Seine conservatory)

8] Dog eat dog :: Jérôme Combier (2017 – 5mn)

For guitar and cello

9] Three suns :: Jérôme Combier (3mn)

For guitar (young performer from the Ivry-sur-Seine conservatory)

10] Openlab – Ensemble music workshop with electronics led by Dmitri Kourliandski (2024 – 15 mins)

Workshop with young musicians from the Ivry-sur-Seine conservatory

Projection of the score ‘Unsolvable acoustic cases’.