Jean-Baptiste Barrière and Kaija Saariaho
We are delighted to present a program of music and video works by Jean-Baptiste Barrière and Kaija Saariaho. Both artists are in residence in the Bay Area this fall presenting a large number of performances and lectures, and we are very pleased that they have managed to fit a visit to CCRMA into their busy schedules. Jean-Baptiste Barrière will also present a preconcert talk - open to the public - early in the day at 5.00PM on the CCRMA Stage.
Program -
Kaija Saariaho:
Laconisme de l’aile, for flute, electronics & video
Noa Noa, for flute, electronics & video
Lohn, for soprano, electronics & video
Intermission
Jean-Baptiste Barrière:
Chréode, for quadrophonic tape
Violance, for flute, recorded child voice, electronics & video
Ekstasis, for soprano, electronics & video
Performed by -
Camilla Hoitenga, flute
Raphaële Kennedy, soprano
Jean-Baptiste Barrière, electronics, video
Isabelle Barrière, live cameras
Thomas Goepfer, musical assistant
Kaija Saariaho is a Finnish composer whose music has been critically acclaimed all over the world for her refined musical explorations, unique blending of coloristic textures and expression. She has composed chamber music as well as large orchestral pieces and operas, all today among the most performed contemporary works.
This half program presents some of the facets of her chamber music through three very varied pieces involving electronics, with visual parts designed by the composer and multimedia artist Jean-Baptiste Barrière.
The program covers over thirty years of her music, with the earliest Laconisme de l’aile, for flute, typical of her extended instrumental timbre explorations, based on a poem by Saint John Perse, and two of her famous works with electronics: NoaNoa for flute, inspired by etchings of Paul Gauguin, as well as Lonh for soprano, on a text by medieval troubadour Jaufré Rudel,
Jean-Baptiste Barrière is a French composer and multimedia artist, who after a long carrer at Ircam, where he was successively Director of Musical Research, Education and Prodiction, has been dedicating his work during the last fifteen years to the interactions between music and image. He conceives visual concerts and interactive installations staging these relations, sometimes on the basis of dramatic or poetic texts. This is the case with two pieces presented in this visual concert portrait: Violance for flute, electronics and video, on the myth of the massacre of the innocents, based on a short story by Maurice Maeterlinck, itself based on a painting by Pieter Brueghel the Elder; or in Ekstasis, for soprano, electronics and video, inspired by poems by two extraordinary women-activists, a mystical meditation by the philosopher Simone Weil, and a call for armed insurrection, by revolutionary Louise Michel. The program is completed by Chreode for quadrophonic tape, considered today a masterpiece of electronic music, realized with the Chant synthesis program at the beginning of the eighties at Ircam, where he was then a researcher.