Cellist ARNE DEFORCE

>> agenda

FEEDCORN EAR for amplified cello and tape, final part of a Phill Niblock cycle including Harm and Poure composed for Arne Deforce commissioned by Musique Bienale en -Scène LYON. Premiere march 15 - 2012.

FORIS for cello and live-electronics, world premier of a brand new work by the French composer Raphael Cendo. A radical new major composition within the development of aesthetics, essentially based on the concept of infra-saturation.

"As far as my other works are concerned, advocating a form of total saturation, with energy being the driving force, what stands out here is the suggestion of a world ravaged by excessive energy, where all that remains is a phantom relic of its former self. Infra-saturation represents a world where nothing remains but the distant passing of flames, a world made of ash, leaving a trail of immeasurable energy... The concept of saturation carries within it the notion of excess and challenges acts of moderation. Overindulgence in sound and the overload of information pushed to the limit, open the way for new tracks in the formation of tone. Beyond saturation, but still falling within its influence, infra-saturation is nothing more than a reference to its own Darkness, the advent of a dark form of energy, a descent into a saturated state of hell." Raphael Cendo

Performances at Musique Bienale en -Scène LYON, Fondation Royaumont, Transit Leuven and Images Sonores Liège.


21/01/2012 Luxembourg Philharmonie Xenakis & Aperghis with Luciln (LU)
22/12/2011 Gent Vooruit Arne Deforce & Mika Vainio (B)
24/11/2011 Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (UK)
28/09/2011 Fondation Boghossian Villa Empain Brussel (B)
25/09/2011 Time Canvas Muhka Antwerp (B)
11/09/2011 Betoverd Bos Maria Aalter (B)
10/09/2011 Fondation Royaumont (Fr)
30/08/2011 Ostrava New Music Days (Cz)

>> NEW MUSIC

Raphael Cendo
FORIS for cello and live-electronics (2012)

Foris est une des racines latines du mot forêt désignant plus particulièrement un « en-dehors », un lieu extérieur à la civilisation, un lieu sauvage et inconnu. La pièce développe dans un premier temps une multitude de modes de jeux enchainés rapidement et transformés en temps réel par l’électronique accentuant ainsi la perte de repère auditive entre le son produit et sa transformation. Après une période centrale statique ou l’espace se concentre sur un son pur produit par l’archet sur le cordier de l’instrument, Foris focalise sur certains des modes de jeux entendu dans la première partie, en les développant et en les variant à outrance. Si c’est bien d’une forêt qu’il s’agit c’est celle de l’imaginaire ou tout nous semble étranger : Bruissement, bruit sourd, déflagration, craquements, passages d’étranges entités. C’est aussi dans la partition même une densité d’événements qui est proposé à l’instrumentiste, une forêt de symboles. L’écriture gestuelle, poussée dans ses retranchements, force l’instrumentiste à devenir acteur, maitre et géographe de ce monde imaginaire. La spatialisation sur six canaux vient décupler l’écoute de cette espace si particulier.

Je tiens particulièrement à remercier Arne Deforce pour son engagement et le travail de recherche que nous avons accomplie ensemble ainsi que Max Brucker pour le travail qu’il a réalisé sur la partie temps réel. La pièce est dédiée à Arne Deforce.

Raphael Cendo

Raphaël Cendo's music seizes us bodily or, more precisely, captures all our senses! His biography is a legend. Upon graduating from the Paris Conservatoire, the jury dared not grant him his full legitimacy. The institution bestowed only a second prix, but his music was already first. He had turned his back on his peers quite some time ago and chosen shortcuts at the risk of being misunderstood. The radical nature of his thinking asserted itself, and he invented the saturation. The principle of this music is 'a thwarting of the limit, thanks to an excess of energy'. Releasing the instrumental energy, bringing the performer's body into the field of the composition, making the concert no longer a simple disaffected representation but a basic musical act, a sound ritual in which the performer is the officiant. This calls for mad virtuosity from the performers. The sound is metamorphosed. It is no longer a matter of planning but of losing oneself; it is no longer a matter of organising but of cutting a path in an unstable, wild and unknown world, for what is written as much as for he who plays it and he who receives it.

Ruben Sverre Gjertsen
PSI for cello solo (2011)

Psi for cello solo is a tribute to Nomos by Iannis Xenakis. Not by direct use of its materials, but by exploring a number of sound situations appearing during this piece, either rapidly passing by those raw, direct structures, or dwelling longer within them. Interesting ideas from the Xenakis piece are:

• The C-string is tuned 1 octave down, enabling double stops with a span of more than 7 octaves.
• Passages with prerecorded voices concluding Nomos with one voice playing within a whole tone scale, the other voice within a 3/4-tone scale. Xenakis made exceptions from the scales, which I also allow myself to do.
• Extreme glissando gestures.

• Interferences and microtonality.
• A variety of percussive sounds.
• Bow friction and timbre change.
Xenakis can for this piece inspire to both a multidimensional musical thinking, and a direct and physical use of the instrument.

Commissioned by Marc Texier and Fondation Royaumont for Arne Deforce.
Creation at Fondation Royaumont september 10th 2011

Ruben Sverre Gjertsen