Jean-Francois Charles

On April 16, 2026, we performed with Ramin Roshandel (the Jamshid Jam duet) new music to an excerpt from Lotte Reiniger 's film The Adventures of Prince Achmed . Here is the live recording: This performance was a first step towards the creation of a complete soundtrack for the 65-minute movie as a trio (Ramin Roshandel, Nicolas Sidoroff, and myself). One of the next steps consisted in the creation of a kind of storyboard for the movie: To be continued...

Tonight at 5:30pm, Ramin Roshandel and I, i.e. the Jamshid Jam duet, are playing new music to an excerpt of Lotte Reiniger 's wonderful movie The Adventures of Prince Achmed , at the invitation of film and media historian Michael Cowan and the organisers. Come if you are available! If not, stay tuned: we are working on more music for this film! To be continued...

Monday, October 6, 7:30pm, Voxman Building, Opera Studio My colleague professor Matthew Arndt emcees the first of seven presentations of an intergalactic music poetics. As he says: " Drawing together ancient wisdom and modern science, this poetics aims at transmuting one’s experience of everything as music and living joyfully even as we work confidently toward an abundant future. " I am thrilled that Matthew Arndt invited me to curate the second part of the evening with compositions of mine. I am also thrilled that brilliant minds and artists from Iowa City are joining me on stage! Program Matthew Arndt presents the première of a video episode produced by Rabalais Productions with artisan animation by Auden Lincoln-Vogel. Legit , for trombone & live electronics, with Jonathan Allen Jamshid Jam & guest, for setar & live electronics with guest spoken word artist, with Ramin Roshandel and Jhe Russell Première of Montagne Pelée , for solo baritone saxop...

The Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik is a prestigious non-profit organization dedicated to awarding prizes to the best new releases in recorded music. I am thrilled to see that our album Tenebrae was nominated for the Quarterly Critic's Choice in the category Electronic & Experimental Music . Check the complete list of nominees in all 32 categories .

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...

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...

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...

Following-up on a great 2022 concert , Timothy Gill and David Gompper recently released the album Exchanges on Albany Records. They included my composition Petrified, for cello & live electronics (link to score & Max patches) . I love how the amazing Timothy Gill made the interpretation his own. He really contributed his original creativity in the three improvised cadenzas. This work fits in the long tradition of compositions for cello and electronics. A classic one is Kaija Saariaho 's Petals for Solo Cello and Electronics (1988). Listen here to a recording by cellist Madeleine Shapiro on Albany Records. Brian Ferneyhough composed Time and Motion Study II for cello and live electronics (1973-76). The piece uses tape delays and ring modulation, very much in the tradition. Here is a recording showing the score . Dai Fujikura 's The Spirit of Beings is composed for cello and fixed electronics (backing track). Here is a live recording . Composer Kar...

When we performed at the Stanley Museum of Art, there was quite a bit of ambient noise. This pushed us to create music like we had never made together yet. Especially, the second part of the concert ended with an incredible constellation of sonic stars . Here is the video: You could already listen to the first part of the concert .

Ramin Roshandel and I were invited to perform for the release party of the book In a Time of Witness - the event took place on September 22, 2023. We were super excited to play for the first time as the Jamshid Jam duet at the Stanley Museum of Art. Plus, we were super lucky that Negar Soufi showed up with two cameras and her friend from Cinematic Arts Malik Ford . Here is the first part of the concert: If you like the music, have a look at our Jamshid Jam Tiny Desk Contest video !

September 8: theory & musicology colloquium, University of Iowa. Thank you colleagues, and Sarah Suhadolnik for the pictures! September 11: University of Nebraska, Omaha. Thank you music technologist Seth Shafer ! September 12: Iowa State University, Ames. Thank you astromusicologist Ritwik Banerji ! September 15: Impromptu Fest, High Concept Labs, Chicago. Thank you pianist and composer Amy Wurtz , pianist Marianne Parker , composer Ben Zucker , cellist Alyson Berger , photographer Andy Yau for the pictures, and everyone at New Music Chicago! September 22: Stanley Museum of Art , University of Iowa. Thank you curator of learning & engagement Kimberly Datchuk, and everyone at the Stanley - we love this museum! We hope to see you today at the Stanley, 6:30-8pm!

The tubax is a contrabass saxophone with a 1999 design by Benedikt Eppelsheim . During his doctoral studies at the University of Iowa - and under the guidance of virtuoso saxophonist Kenneth Tse - saxophonist Yo-yo Su developed strong skills on the tubax. He commissioned new music and dedicated a recording project to new music for tubax. I was glad that we performed and recorded a new version of my composition Petrified , for tubax & live electronics. Before the recording, we performed the piece during our fall Laptop Orchestra Concert and during Yo-yo's doctoral recital: More videos featuring Yo-yo Su .

From the Jamshid Jam duet archives: an excerpt from our Englert Theatre 2021 show . Studio album: jamshidjam.com

In April 2022, virtuoso Marco Fusi gave a wonderful violin and viola d'amore recital at the University of Iowa. The piece I wrote for him is titled Voltaic . As mentioned in the score , Voltaic may be played as a solo for viola d'amore, or with live electronics accompaniment.

One of the interesting concerts we organized this season in the Voxman Music Building was the Composers' Workshop on December 6, 2022 . For this concert, we set-up a system of 14 speakers in the Voxman Concert Hall. Composer Ziang Han had written a new piece for organ and live electronics. I helped him mixing it in Atmos to make the spatialization work in the beautiful space. The program also included Flo Menezes 's recent spatialized composition Perpetui decoris structura . Flo is an incredible person and composer, I hope we can invite him in Iowa at some point! I really enjoyed hearing the organ with our ad hoc orchestra of loudspeakers. To know more about the impressive Klais organ, I let the passionate Professor of Organ Gregory Hand show you inside:

Moxsonic Festival , Warrensburg, MO, March 18: TURN UP Festival , Tucson, AZ, March 25 SEAMUS Festival & Conference , New York City, DiMenna Center for Classical Music , April 7: Jamshid Jam: Ramin Roshandel (setār) & Jean-François Charles (live electronics)

The Jamshid Jam duet features Ramin Roshandel on setār and Jean-François Charles on live electronics. Here is an excerpt of our Iowa City October 2022 concert .

In the fall, we had the great pleasure of welcoming in Iowa artist & technologist Philippe Ollivier . During the final Loopers & Composers concert , as a prelude to this solo show, he performed a piece with the graduate students taking the course Interactive Music . All of the students used the advanced looper Logelloop . Here more about Philippe's 2022 adventure in the USA on his website .

Three years after my last appearance on the Hancher stage, I am thrilled to take part in a new Dance Gala production. Choreographer Armando Duarte invited composer Ramin Roshandel to write a new piece for his dance work. The result combines electronic and acoustic sounds. The musicians are: Nicole Esposito , flute Benjamin Coelho , bassoon Ramin Roshandel , live electronics M Denney , live electronics Jean-François Charles, live electronics Armando Duarte introduces the piece Espaldar : Espaldar translates from Portuguese to English as “the back of a chair.” Inspired by images from late 1940s, and based on personal stories, Espaldar is a self-reflection to where we are at this moment in humanity... a contemplation on the significance of individuals interacting within each other in a secluded environment under strenuous external circumstances. The cast is a wonderful group of eight dancers. I hope you can make it to one of the shows: Friday, Nov 11 and Saturday, ...

Save the date! On October 21, Ramin Roshandel and I are giving a mini-concert at Public Space One in Iowa City to celebrate the release of our album Jamshid Jam . 538, South Gilbert St, 7pm, Free admission. See you there!