Jean-Francois Charles

On Sunday, I'm playing the bass clarinet in the Ensemble Sable & Ciel. We are performing Giacinto Scelsi 's Kya, featuring soloist Christophe Dravers on clarinet. It's great music, with subtle relations between tuned and detuned intervals. Christophe Dravers plays beautifully, while Marc Schuster conducts with precision & poetry. Mozart and Rota are also on the program:

I met Christophe Bertrand at the Strasbourg conservatory : we both studied with composer Ivan Fedele . We also worked in the same ARES music school . Unfortunately, Christophe decided to leave this world in 2010. Tonight, you are invited to a concert of his beautiful and energetic music. Two contemporary classical music ensembles join forces for this unique event: In Extremis (co-founded by Christophe Bertrand) and Court-Circuit . Special thought for the In Extremis musicians: we shared intense musical time in the East of France, especially with violinist Szuhwa Wu, flutist Olivier Class, pianist Maxime Springer, and cellist Anil Eraslan. Concert at 8 p.m. Monday, January 20th, 2014 Studio 105, Radio France 116 avenue du Président Kennedy, 75016 Paris Porte B Free entrance. If you can't make it to the concert hall, listen to the live broadcast on France-Musique radio !

Last year, I told you about the new course I set-up at the Pays de Montbéliard conservatory: Electro-chamber music . After studying delays and ring modulation through Stockhausen's Mantra , the students went on with further explorations. Here is a summary of what they did during the second part of the class: using a live granular delay (example with Reaktor Grainstates) focus on loopers (see below) audio freeze with Max microphones and sound design (examples with Hans Zimmer & Diego Stocco, a.o.) composing a performance environment More on loopers When asked to come up with examples of performers using a looper, the students gave me the following examples: Phil Stendek Bittersweet symphony, guitar & voice Michaël Brecker playing the EWI (Akai electronic wind instrument) - looper example from 2:10 a bassoonist in his room street improv on the cello, by Prypjat Syndrome My choice I gave the students the following video of guitar player and composer John Gilliat . ...

The fourth session of my Electro-chamber music course was dedicated to Karlheinz Stockhausen 's classic Mantra . This composition for two pianos (with rind modulators, crotales, woodblock, and more) is a beautiful example of new soundscapes unveiled with live electronic music. It reminds as well that the artistic use of live electronic sound processing predates digital technology. Composing for a traditional instrument and live electronics During the class, the students explored crucial moments of the composition. In Mantra , Stockhausen found many great connections between the acoustic properties of the piano and the ring modulation process. For instance, at the top, the first piano's modulator frequency is set at 220Hz, the fundamental frequency of the A3 repeated in the melody ( musical formula , to use Stockhausen's lingo). With this setting, the piano sounds almost natural on the A3 note, and grows stranger and stranger the farther the note is from this central pitc...

The second session of our Electro-chamber music class was dedicated to delays. We played with a great piece of gear: the Boss DD-7. It's a powerful compact digital delay pedal, complete with expression pedal input to continually vary the delay time for instance. But to fully understand what's going on when we're using such gear, knowing about the history of delay effects comes very handy. Analog tape delays That's why I introduced in class a couple of great musical examples featuring tape delays. Of course, two major actors in 20th century electronic music are mentioned: the group Pink Floyd and composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. Here are a few visuals: David Gilmour used a Binson Echorec extensively with Pink Floyd between 1968 and 1977.   The very first commercialized guitar delay was inside the Echosonic amplifier   Excerpt from Ray Butts' patent for the tape delay inside the Echosonic. Check out the recording head (REH) and the play head (PH).   O...

A new option at the Montbéliard Conservatory In French conservatories, some music students prepare the Diplôme d'études musicales (DEM) , a diploma most often with a major in instrumental performance, with an academic level corresponding to a high school diploma. In addition to developing their performance and interpretation skills, they take additional courses in Culture musicale . Next week, I'm giving the first class of a new course counting for such a Culture musicale credit. I entitled it Electro-chamber music (or, to be precise, Électro-musique de chambre ): The electric guitar revolutionized the course of music history by revealing previously unexplored sonic colors. Is it possible to further expand the range of possibilities by integrating our classical music intruments with electronic and computer technologies? All technologies are at our fingertips today, but how best can we use them to serve music? Such are the topics explored throughout this course. Each studen...

One year after the premiere concert, here is the video of Live Saturation : Live Saturation for flute and electronic music with Ruth Lepson's poetry This is the live recording of Mario Caroli's Harvard recital , that took place on May 24th, 2008, to the invitation of the Harvard Group for New Music. Mario Caroli plays Ivan Fedele I studied under Maestro Ivan Fedele during several years at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg . Mario Caroli is one of the best interprets of his music. That's why I'm happy to link to two video recordings with ensemble Algoritmo: 1. Notturno , for flute, clarinet, bass clarinet, piano, percussion, harp, 2 violins, viola, violoncello, and double bass. 2. Profilo in eco (first part) , for solo flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, horn, piano, percussion, violin, viola, violoncello, and double bass. One more thing that I like in these recordings: the excellent clarinetist Roberta Gottardi is a friend since we played together the premiere and ...

Here is the recording of Live Saturation , for flute and electronic music. Flutist Mario Caroli was recorded live on May 24th, 2008 in Paine Hall, Harvard Music Department . I already told you about my collaboration with poet Ruth Lepson for the production of the electronic music. That was a real pleasure to see her come not only to the concert, but also to a whole rehearsal. Read her texts on www.ruthlepson.org . Hit play to listen: 1-5/60 - Live Saturation by Jean-Francois Charles You will find on a previous post the program notes . The flute part The complete performance score is only 3 pages long. Cues from the electronic music part are rather easy to hear. As you can see (click on the pictures for more details), the degree of synchronization between the flute and the electronic music is left quite free. The performer must trust his/her ears and musical sense; by listening to t...

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!

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 Conservator...

After the premiere and the publication of the score , here is the recording of Bleu 3 : You can also listen to it or download it on last.fm . This is the live recording of the premiere, admirably performed by: Rane Moore, clarinet Gabby Diaz, violin Benjamin Schwartz, cello Yoko Hagino, piano Eric Hewitt , conductor Of course, I was wearing a blue shirt: Look inside the score New! Have a look inside the score with both amazon and google books .

A composition for clarinet and string quartet Nigritella nigra 's first part (until 3'50'') consists in a chord which color changes through the use of microtones. This is a musical image of the flower's vanilla scent. The short central passage (until 4'15'') is a deforming mirror. After that comes a distorted retrograde of the first part. The concentration of energy in microtones in the first part is transformed in more extravert gestures in the second part. The flower Nigritella nigra has a strong character! Avignon - Acanthes I composed Nigritella nigra in 1998, for my first participation to the contemporary classical music center Centre Acanthes . Sofia Gubaidulina was the guest composer, while Viktor Suslin was responsible for the composition workshop. You are listening to the recording of the final concert, featuring musicians from the Orchestre Lyrique de Région Avignon-Provence , conducted by Sylvio Gualda: Didier Breuque, clarinet D...

Sunday, November 18, 5:30 p.m. St. Paul's Cathedral, Tremont Street, Boston I am honored and excited that the Boston Microtonal Society included my piece Tilia for flute, violin, and cello, in the Fall concert of Notariotous (featuring Jessi Rosinski (flute), Gabriela Diaz (violin), David Russell (cello), and James Bergin (director)). Music in the form of a tree Like the tree , Tilia has roots, a trunk, and inflorescences twirling in the wind. I composed the piece in 2000 after a musical formula , designed as the musical image of a tree (click to enlarge): Here are the program notes : Tilia spreads as the tree develops. The roots, meeting resistance, penetrate the earth little by little. The trunk widens in the rhythm of the seasons; Spring, summer, autumn and winter bring an additional ring to it. The wind blows in the foliage and makes the inflorescences whirl. Listen to a live recording featuring Jessi Rosinski (flute), Gabriela Diaz (violin), Alexei Yupanqui Gonzales (cell...

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to record Mario Caroli , the great flutist. My project has been to create a library of samples for a "Mario Caroli" drum kit, for the Ultrabeat rhythm synthesizer & step sequencer (or actually for any drum machine). During a 20-minute recording session, Mario listened to sounds from a "classic hip-hop remix drum kit", and imitated them with his flute and his talent. I recorded the session in ProTools, the main system in Huseac studios. I still have to edit the samples. I will make the whole final set available on the internet, Mario agreed with that. I will let you know as soon as everything is ready! A few Mario Caroli recordings available in the USA: Amazon.com Widgets Mario Caroli is the Fromm guest of the Harvard Group for New Music in 2007/2008. He will come back for a concert on May 24th, 2008.

On August 31st, I finished the score of Bleu 3 , a composition for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. Today, I wrote program notes : I composed Bleu 3 during the summer 2007. The piece has been inspired by the triptych " Les trois bleu " by Juan Miró . For this project, I adopted an iterative composition process involving several interests of mine. First, I recorded Bleu 1 , a series of three miniatures improvised on bass clarinet, basset-horn , and contrabass clarinet , using each of the three paintings as instantaneous inspiration. The next step has been an electronic music piece called Bleu 2 . All the sounds in this piece result from transformations of the Bleu 1 sound file through personal spectral processing tools. Finally, Bleu 3 is a transcription of Bleu 2 into a quartet for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano. The eight sections of the piece are called Cristal , Fouillis , Louange , Ange , Abîme , Danse , Arcs-en-ciel , and Fureur . Bleu 3 is an homage to Olivi...