11-13/60 - Play Along 1, 2, 3 - Clarinet Duets

Lionel Liebe was a clarinet student of mine, and I am doubly thrilled that he took part to the 60/60 interactive composition project. Thank you Lionel for your participation, and the really active part you played in this project. Thanks for the three presents, for the discussion, and for the music you made me discover!

Premiere Concert

Petra Stump and Heinz-Peter Linshalm will perform an amazing concert on June 13th, 2008 in Vienna. The event is entitled Short Cuts, and will feature short works by 27 living composers!

I am honored that these two amazing clarinetists gave me the opportunity to take part to this project, and so glad that they will perform these duets. Remember, we played together in Karlheinz Stockhausen's Rechter Augenbrauentanz, his own excerpt/arrangement of Samstag aus Licht.

Clarinet duets for teacher and student

Play Along 1, 2, and 3 are three pedagogical pieces. After the premiere, I will make the parts available, so that clarinet teachers can use them freely.

In Play Along 1, the student learns to play with the mouthpiece only, and later to sing and play at the same time. Development of embouchure and ear.

Play Along 2 introduces quarter-tones and contrast between fast straight 8th notes and slow swung ones.

Play Along 3 must be played with much energy, much sound, much rhythmical precision, and much pleasure. "Estradally" is a reference to the group Estradasphere that Lionel Liebe likes and had me listen to. Check out their Hunger Strike.

Mario Caroli Drum Kit - Download the Samples!

Mario Caroli is a great flute player, a real virtuoso as well as a very enthusiastic musician. He authorized me to publish 25 flute samples on the Freesound Project, a collaborative database of sounds.

Listen to and download the Mario Caroli Drum Kit.

Each sound is unprocessed, as naturally played by Mario. As I described in a post about the recording session, this set of samples has been modeled after Logic Pro's "Classic Hip-Hop Remix Drum Kit", available in the drum machine Ultrabeat.

5/60 - Cell 2

A 6-second ringtone made with these samples. You can hear it around the end of Saturation. Hit play:

Or listen to it on last.fm: 5/60 - Cell 2.

These flute samples are made available under a Creative Commons Sampling Plus 1.0 License: use them, and let us know about the music you produce!

Harvard Group for New Music Concert starring flutist Mario Caroli

Mario Caroli has been in Cambridge since Sunday, and we are in the middle of rehearsals to prepare this concert:

Saturday, May 24th, 2008 - 8 p.m.
Paine Hall - Harvard Music Department

You will hear new music for flute, or flute and electronic music:

• Hillary Zipper: Point de neige for flute and live electronics
• Gabriele Vanoni: Space Oddities for solo flute
• Bert Van Herck: Articulations colorées for solo flute
• Dominique Schafer: Cendre for flute and live electronics
• Karola Obermüller: ...sibbern for bass flute
• Peter Gilbert: Elegie for flute and tape
• Jean-François Charles: Live Saturation for flute and electronic music
• Edgar Barroso: Kapsis for solo flute

Premiere of Live Saturation

I finished the program notes yesterday evening:

Live Saturation is a musical setting of Ruth Lepson’s poem Saturation (published in the literary review "Carve – poems" in August 2006.)
Ruth Lepson is a poet & poet-in-residence at the New England Conservatory. We met during the summer of 2007, and performed together for the launch party of the book Morphology (co-authored by photographer Walter Crump.)
On January 9th, we recorded Ruth's poem in the Huseac studio. Thank you Ruth for letting me record and remix your words!
I met Mario Caroli in Strasbourg, where I studied before moving to Cambridge. We recorded samples for Live Saturation on October 30th, 2007. Thank you Mario for letting me record and remix your music!

Live Saturation is part of 60/60, a web-based interactive composition project. The first minute of the electronic music is dedicated to the project participant Katherine Lee, the next four minutes to Brigitte Urien. Thank you for your inspirational support!
I invite you to join the creation of 60/60 on http://www.jeanfrancoischarles.com, ou à discuter en français sur http://www.jeanfrancoischarles.fr.
Listen to and read more of Ruth's words on http://www.ruthlepson.org.

Contest: win Morphology!
The last two verses of Ruth Lepson's poem are:
I love
Arthur Dove
In my sonic work, Ruth doesn't speak these words. Be the first to find out how these two verses are suggested! The prize is Ruth Lepson and Walter Crump's recent book. Hint: you are looking for two references, one for "I love", another for "Arthur Dove". Good luck!

In a couple days, I will release the samples of the Mario Caroli Drum Kit. Stay tuned!

Helianthus musca - Thank you Helmut Lachenmann

This Spring 2008, Helmut Lachenmann was the Fromm Visiting Professor at Harvard.

We met for the first time in 1999, when I was a student at Centre Acanthes. My piece Helianthus musca was selected for the final concert, and premièred by the Orchestre Lyrique de Région Avignon Provence (OLRAP) conducted by Sylvio Gualda.

Here at Harvard, Herr Lachenmann has been a great professor, as generous during his seminars as during private lessons/discussions.
It was fun to listen again to Helianthus musca with him. Here is the original recording from July 22nd, 1999 (click play, or listen to it on last.fm):

You will surely guess which instruments play Helianthus, and which ones play musca...

Check also Helmut Lachenmann in April 2008.

Ballade for clarinetist dancer

May has been a great dance season at Harvard.

I invite you to Dancers' Dozen - New dances by 12 student choreographers created in Dramatic Arts 14a, a course taught by Lecturer Elizabeth Bergmann, with Assistant Joshua Legg (meet the Dance Staff).

Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 7PM - Free.
Harvard Dance Center - 60 Garden Street - Cambridge, MA

I will perform for the first time my composition Ballade for clarinetist dancer (or dancing clarinetist?), and there will be awesome choreographers and dancers.

In the meantime, have a look at Liz Bergmann's great little book: Connecting to Creativity: Ten Keys to Unlocking Your Creative Potential

More information about Dance at Harvard.