Tenebrae: a 21st century reverberation of Carlo Gesualdo's Tenebrae responsories

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.

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 and I spent time organizing a jazz festival, making music for silent movies, and attending many concerts. We have played in the streets of Lyon, in malls and concert halls, on desert shores in Bretagne and at a community center in Ainsworth, Iowa.
  • We have seen, with Franck Cottet-Dumoulin, double bass
    When it was time for me to start playing an instrument, Franck Cottet-Dumoulin, my first music teacher, suggested I try the clarinet. He taught me about breathing, introduced me to conducting, and gave me precious feedback on my first compositions. We performed together on stages from Strasbourg to Geneva and Krakow.

Second nocturne

  • My friend, with Céline Rivoal, accordion
    In 2015 and 2016, Céline Rivoal and I improvised new music around Brest in places such as a public library and the Coin de la Rue café. In the summer of 2021, we shared a musical afternoon along with Nicolas Sidoroff and Krystian Sarrau at the Logelloù artistic center.
  • Judas, with Stéphane Sordet, saxophone
    Stéphane Sordet, a trailblazer of new music, created the baritone saxophone version of my composition, Petrified. In 2016, at the invitation of the late Philippe Arrii-Blachette, we took part in a series of exciting performances of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Mikrophonie I with the Ensemble Sillages.
  • One of my disciples, with Henri-Pierre Deroux, violo-dan-bau
    I worked with artist and educator Henri-Pierre Deroux in 2015 and 2016 to create an Improbable Orchestr’A of grade schoolers in Brest. Stéphane Sordet and Céline Rivoal also took part in the project. Henri-Pierre has created countless musical instruments that continue to open the minds of workshop participants and audiences.

Third nocturne

  • Like a lamb, with Isaac Dubow, trumpet
    Isaac Dubow and I started playing together a few minutes after we met in the fall of 2023.
  • One hour, with Will Yager, double bass
    I treasure the memory of a basement house show performed with the trio Wombat in Kansas City, one of many performances of improvised music shared with Will Yager. Later, we played Pascal Dusapin’s Anacoluthe with vocalist Anika Kildegaard. Will is a featured soloist on my album Missa brevis Abbaye de Thélème.
  • The elders, with Krystian Sarrau, modular synthesizer
    A saxophonist and jazz educator, Krystian Sarrau built his modular synthesizer based on open-source modules. As part of a trio with Nicolas Sidoroff, we composed and performed a soundtrack to Dziga Vertov’s Kino-Pravda newsreels during a residency at the Logelloù artistic center.

Bonus tracks

  • La bête, with Alice Gervais-Ragu, spoken voice
    Alice Gervais-Ragu danced in my composition, Wu Jú Sè, choreographed and sang in our Rêver collaboration, and wrote the poem La bête for my Electroclarinet album. Together, we met with Labanotation specialist Jacqueline Challet-Haas, attended underground dance shows, and held rehearsals in artist-occupied squats.
  • The sea, with Jhe Russell, spoken voice
    After Jhe Russell and I performed together in Iowa City, he played a lead role in the premiere of my opera Grant Wood in Paris. Jhe performed on the Missa brevis Abbaye de Thélème album and danced in my Agnus Dei music video.

Recording with live electronics

We recorded the Tenebrae tracks were performed and recorded as live duets, both musicians listening and reacting to each other in a classic situation of improvised and chamber music. I sampled and remixed the other musician's sound in real time with my custom set-up and software Spectral DJ. Some of the tracks were edited, but no electronic sound was generated after the initial duet takes, and no overdub takes were made.

A boat

This boat, floating at the frontier of the physical and the spiritual realms, was photographed by Ramin Roshandel in the spring of 2024. Is it inhabited? Is it an ex-voto? Are people around?

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