Jean-Francois Charles

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...

This afternoon, we are celebrating the opening of the Stanley Museum of Art ! The Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre is presenting airs from The Grant Wood Operas: Strokes of Genius in the lobby of the Museum at 5 pm. Élise Deschamps is singing Nattie's Air , while Mitchell Widmer is performing the song Flip the Page . Thank you so much!

To engrave the score and parts for the Grant Wood in Paris opera, I used Dorico . You'll find more information in this conversation with Daniel Spreadbury: Dorico Showcase: Celebrating Grant Wood’s Strokes of Genius . Here are a couple of examples that could not be included on the article:

You are invited on Thursday night at the Canvas & Composers event, featuring the composer-librettists who created The Grant Wood Operas: Strokes of Genius : Jean-François Charles Robert Lindsey-Nassif Michael Ching With the presence of the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art staff: Executive Director Sean Ulmer Associate Curator Kate Kunau They are going to discuss the Grant Wood painting that inspired the three new operas. Canvas & Composers Thursday, March 14, 7-8 pm Cedar Rapids Museum of Art 410 Third Avenue SE, Auditorium Free and open to the public

The Cedar Rapids Opera Theatre production Grant Wood: Strokes of Genius is coming soon! Here are the paintings that inspired me to compose Grant Wood in Paris . The postcard written by Grant Wood in Paris is not going to be shown, but you will see that the set includes projections of the paintings. If you want to buy your tickets, they are available online at the Cedar Rapids Theatre .

Let's start with some music: here Michel Godard (serpent) performs with the Rembrandt Frerichs Trio (fortepiano, violone, drums): I am featuring the serpent in my current composition project, so I've been quite intrigued to see that Forsyth actually mentions the serpent in his great Orchestration book (amazon link) - I often recommend the string chapters to student composers. Here is what Forsyth says about the serpent (bold underlining mine): No. 44. Obsolete Wood-Wind. The Serpent. The Serpent, as we have already explained, was the predecessor of the Bass-Horn, the Russian-Bassoon , and the Ophicleide . It was really the bass of the old Zinke or Cornet à bouquin , the instrument which supplied the normal treble-part to the medieval Brass-band. All these instruments, whatever the material of their tubes, employed the same methods of tone-production and of scale-variation–the cup-mouthpiece and the laterally pierced holes. Originally the Serpent was keyless. It was me...

On Thursday, October 25th, the Cedar Rapids Opera Theater are presenting their 2018-19 Season Preview Party. I am thrilled to be working with them on an upcoming opera about Grant Wood: I'll let you know more about this work in the coming months. In the meantime, please come to the preview party: tenor Benjamin Kawsky is going to perform my song Flip the Page . In the opera, Grant Wood sings this tune while studying in Paris at the Julian Academy .