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Monnet and Dusapin with Ligament

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This week-end, I am playing with LIGAMENT a house show in Minneapolis and a concert at Constellation in Chicago ( tickets ). Anika Kildegaard: voice Will Yager: double bass Jean-François Charles: bass & contrabass clarinets, electronics Program Chansons Imprévues - Marc Monnet II. Décapeur IV. Mon mour teur meur An Alphabet for Grant Wood (Nattie's Air, excerpt from the opera Grant Wood in Paris ) - Jean-François Charles Changing Light - Kaija Saariaho not of longing - Paul Novak Petrified - Jean-François Charles ( Minneapolis only ) Benedictus (excerpt from the Missa brevis Abbaye de Thélème ) - Jean-François Charles ( Minneapolis only ) Anacoluthe - Pascal Dusapin Flannau Duo The Chicago concert will start with a set by the Flannau Duo : Jonathan Hannau and Kyle Flens with their program Oops! All Toy Piano : Nobility of Homophones II - Olivia Kieffer Outdifference - Ben Zucker Music for Amplified Toy Pianos - John Cage Cla...
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Tenebrae: a 21st century reverberation of Carlo Gesualdo's Tenebrae responsories

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Over the years, I've been blessed to make music with incredible artists. Today, I am thrilled to annouce the release of the Tenebrae album , created in collaboration with eleven unique musicians and poets. Tenebrae by Jean-François Charles The album is a 21st century reverberation of Carlo Gesualdo's Tenebrae responsories . Like the ship on the album’s cover, the music is suspended between the physical and the spiritual world. Two poetic bonus tracks, La bête and The sea , invite to meditate further on the place of life on planet Earth. First nocturne On the Mount of Olives , with Ramin Roshandel, setar Ramin Roshandel and I created the Jamshid Jam duet in December 2019. We released Jamshid Jam as an album and performed it across the United States. Together, we have also played soccer, enjoyed Persian food, and listened to a lot of music while traveling. Sorrowful is my soul , with Nicolas Sidoroff, trumpet & objects As students, ">Nicolas Sidoroff an...
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Clarinets in Dan Moore's Baby Bossa Nova

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Here is for great holiday music: Baby Bossa Nova, written by Mike Simpson for Dick Schory and the Percussion Pops Orchestra in 1963. Percussionist Dan Moore invited me to play clarinets on his album The Long Way Home . I play the small Eb clarinet, the Bb, the basset-horn, and the contra-alto clarinet. He wrote the arrangement and performed all of the percussion parts. He also shot and edited the video! Check out the album , it features great tunes and great musicians. Happy Holidays!
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Contra-alto Clarinet Multiphonics

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Here is a video that I shared in 2021 with composer Davide Ianni while he was composing Dedalo Nero, a solo for contralto clarinet . The instrument is a Leblanc paperclip contra-alto clarinet in Eb, known as model 350. The instrument I have used might have been made in 1967. Davide was looking for pale multiphonic sounds. All of these sounds are preferably played pianississimo to piano. Some can be played forte. The basic technique to look for multiphonic sounds on a clarinet consists in playing different partials/pitches on a given fingering - using throat shape and air pressure variations. Then try to play these different partials at the same time. I learnt all of these techniques from working with clarinetist Armand Angster .
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Writing for the contralto clarinet: presentation with composer Davide Ianni

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You might remember the premiere performance of composer Davide Ianni's Dedalo Nero, for contralto clarinet . With Davide Ianni, we had the great pleasure of sharing behind-the-scenes details about the piece during the International Clarinet Association New Music Weekend 2024 . You will find below the video of this masterclass:
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Interview with Mike Viola

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I loved meeting with Mike Viola, a passionate musician . We had an enlightening conversation with great questions from the audience. I think that a fan made a video of the interview, but I'm not sure it's available online. Don't hesitate to link it if you stumble upon it!
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Steven Schick in Iowa

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I met Steven Schick when I attended the Centre Acanthes in 2000 . Among other pieces, he had performed Bone Alphabet , which Brian Ferneyhough had written for him. Steven Schick was a guest at the University of Iowa in October : he was born in Iowa and got a Bachelor and a Masters at the University. It was a treat to hear him perform Bone Alphabet again, but I also enjoyed a lot hearing two performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen's Zyklus , a wonderfully playful piece. Steven Schick also conducted a beautiful rendering of Varèse's Ionisation , a sensitive piece of percussion chamber music. I had the pleasure of performing with the Center for New Music conducted by David Gompper . The most important piece on the concert was George Lewis 's Soundlines , a piece during which Steven Schick tells the story of a walk he took from San Diego to San Francisco. During the summer, I re-built the live electronics set-up designed by George Lewis; I took care of the live sound perfor...
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