Traces
 from France Traces is a new instrumental ensemble of saxophones profoundly interested in the musical languages of today and the unexplored universes of contemporary chamber music. Their work focuses on artistic collaboration, the intersection of written and improvised music, and the sonorous possibilities of electronics within an instrumental ensemble in real time. For three years they have performed throughout France, presenting programs of the saxophone quartet's modern repertoire (Lauba, Lévy, Tanada, Xanakis) as well as new works by promising young composers, residing in France, who are attracted to the great potential of such an ensemble. Traces desires to reach audiences in innovative ways through thematic programing which explores the rich and multiple aesthetics of the 20th and 21st century (Japan, the 2nd Viennese School, music and architecture, etc.). Traces participated notably in the Boulogne-Billancourt Regional Conservatory's annual Contemporary Music Week in 2009 (Hommage à Gérard Grisey) and 2010 (Japon/Europe: regards croisés), collaborating with the conservatory's modern dance class and the Japanese calligrapher Hachiro Kanno in a modern program of chamber music, solo music, and improvisation. Their future collaborations include projects with Olivier Sens, Guillaume Orti, and Dionysos Papanicolaou. |
Quartet No. I - Dionysos PapanicolaouThis quartet is a work for four saxophonists placed in a concert hall, with an electronic element. This piece is a part of a cycle of works that I have composed, uniting compositional research and experimentation in electro-acoustic writing for instrumental music. The example of a mixed work (electronics and live musicians) provides a rich yet delicate situation for composing, where one must define minute passages to bring about the interaction between the two separate elements. This interaction brings about the work itself but also the process of composing: the idea of a common vector and a possible convergence.
Impromptu No. I: homage à André Hodeir - Basile ChassaingThis work unites a composer of jazz and improvised music with a contemporary music saxophone quartet - two aesthetics sharing great similarity in terms of musical language but who seem paradoxically unaware of each other. To compose an improvisation and to improvise composition, Impromptu No. I is written in homage to André Hodeir, the inventor of "written improvisation," who passed away on November 1, 2011. |
The VIDEOS |
