Jean-Francois Charles

This missa brevis is part of the tradition of musical masses, from Guillaume de Machaut to Gabriel Fauré and Pierre Henry to cite French composers. I was also inspired by Mozart 's short masses - I conducted one of them when I was a student. Six French poets are contributing major texts to the ceremony. The works gives voice to many musical styles: you might hear the influence of Pink Floyd , Karlheinz Stockhausen , Albert Ayler , Dr. Dre , Eminem , Mylène Farmer , La Gale , Keny Arkana , or Lady Gaga . Introitus Instrumental Kyrie feat. Jhe Russell François Rabelais , Inscription mise sur la grande porte de Thélème Gloria Marceline Desbordes-Valmore , Veillée Credo Paul Verlaine , Le ciel est par-dessus le toit , Asperges me Offertorium Instrumental Sanctus feat. Jhe Russell Arthur Rimbaud , Le Mal Benedictus Charles Baudelaire , L'Examen de minuit Agnus Dei François Villon , Ballade des pendus Ite, missa est Inst...

  All teasers at https://youtube.com/@newfloremusic

In January, I had the pleasure of recording and producing the vocals for Jhe Russell's New Pi Hawkeye . I have worked with Jhe when he starred in the opera Grant Wood in Paris. Here, you can hear him rap his own lyrics: Rawzen · NEW PI HAWKEYE Learn more in the Daily Iowan's article on Jhe Russell .

Jean-François Charles and the incredible LIGAMENT duo release Benedictus, a powerful mash-up of the latin text and Charles Baudelaire 's poem L'examen de minuit (Midnight Examination) , from Les Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil) . The single showcases the stellar soprano Anika Kildegaard and the wild bassist Will Yager. Update December 2023: the song was re-recorded and is included in the album Missa brevis Abbaye de Thélème . Reactions "Sacré Baudelaire! The poem's tragi-satirical lighting has spared no one... and is still hot! The sound is just as irreverent (and addictive); familiar cues appear to be better disoriented... Acerbic!" — DM "Anika Kildegaard's voice is furiously vibrant & sweetly cruel. Will Yager, in a desperate attempt at brightening the darkness, is setting his bass on fire. LIGAMENT are perfect in this intoxicating Flower of Evil." — CE Lyrics Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini ; Hosanna in excelsis. La pendule,...

The new single Benedictus is being released this Friday, October 2. The incredible LIGAMENT duo are performing this a powerful mash-up of the latin text and Charles Baudelaire's poem L'examen de Minuit (Midnight Examination), from Les Fleurs du Mal (Flowers of Evil). [audio not available]

This semester, I've been coaching bassist Will Yager and soprano Anika Kildegaard on their chamber music project LIGAMENT . They have been building a great repertoire of pieces for double bass and soprano. Then, we had the idea of working on Pascal Dusapin 's composition Anacoluthe , for soprano, double bass, and contrabass clarinet. Last week, during Ensemble Accroche Note 's residency at the School of Music, we worked with clarinetist Armand Angster and soprano Françoise Kubler - she took the pictures. We are performing Anacoluthe tonight, at the School of Music, University of Iowa , at 7:30 in the Recital Hall. You are invited! By the way, do you know what an anacoluthe is?

After the anagrams & first sketch for the composition Relative , here is the score: Axelle and Théophile, two singers at the Montbéliard Conservatory, are performing the piece this Saturday afternoon. During the rehearsal yesterday night, I liked a lot how they seamlessly integrated the "live electronics" and the singing. This miniature constitutes a small part of their exam recital: I wish them all the best.

Relative is the short piece I composed for mezzo soprano, tenor, and live electronics . In the previous post, I told you the lyrics were based on anagrams (in French). Here they are: Mezzo-soprano: Relative      Tenor: La vérité ("the truth") Tenor: La courbure de l'espace-temps ("the curvature of space-time")      Mezzo-soprano: Superbe spectacle de l'amour These letter permutations come from a great short book of anagrams (in French), mixing poetry and fascination for science: By the way, I also used the permutations in the text as a basis to compose the sung melodies...

I was thrilled when Isabelle Jost, singer and professor at the Montbéliard conservatory, came up with a composition project for students of hers. To collaborate with colleagues who are great artists is among the missions and the pleasures of working in a dynamic pedagogical team. I just finished a draft of a very short piece for mezzo & tenor: they are going to perform it at their final recital this year, along with classical and romantic style. Live electronics are performed by the singers themselves, using Roland VE-20 vocal processors . Here is the score draft: The lyrics come from two anagrams, in French. Will you find them?

I'm thrilled to announce the première tonight of Benedictus , the seventh part of my Arc-en-ciel cycle . I'm even more thrilled because the performance features two unique artists, with whom I profoundly enjoyed working: Isabelle Jost, a great singer and professor. I already worked with her in 2005 for the première of Zygomatic Jean-Marc Larché, the excellent saxophonist who plays notably in the Tarkovsky Quartet (they recorded on ECM: Tarkovsky Quartet's recordings ) Sacred music In the Arc-en-ciel cycle, Benedictus is associated with the color purple, and with the theme of spiritual life. Religion, life & death collide when the latin text meets Baudelaire's poem L'examen de Minuit , from Les Fleurs du Mal . The composition has also been inspired by the French artist Mylène Farmer . Tonight's concert Concert is taking place in Montbéliard, in the Palot concert hall, at 8:30 p.m. The program features many compositions for acoustic instruments and liv...

I just uploaded a recording of Risorius , a composition for six singers premièred a year ago by the Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart . Listen or download below: On a post about the related composition Zygomatic , I mentioned other examples of musical laughters. Thanks to the Library of Congress, I must now add to this list a 1906 recording of different laughters , including one during the final musical piece...

When teaching composers about voice, giving a class on the talk box & the vocoder is a great complement. Here are a couple of notes I took to prepare the class I'm giving tomorrow. Talk box The talk box is mostly known as an effect enabling to apply vocalic sound colors to guitar sounds. My teaching material includes: a copy of the original patent for an electronic voice box apparatus , designed to be used as an artificial larynx. a video of Peter Frampton performing with guitar & talk box (the device is used from around 5:40 in the video): a picture of Peter Frampton's talk box, by Carl Lender: drawings on the blackboard, to remind students about formants , resonances of the vocal track, voiced and un-voiced sounds, vocal folds, guitar strings, and more. Vocoder Going from the talk box to the vocoder, it's going from real-world formants to modeled ones , where the resonances are not made by a human's vocal tract, but thanks to electronic resonator circuits...

Yesterday, I jotted down a few notes for a new composition: Benedictus , seventh part of my Arc-en-ciel cycle . It will be for soprano voice, clarinet (or soprano sax), double bass, percussion and live electronics. I have known for a long time that this piece will include latin words: Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini Hosanna in excelsis But I just decided they would be complemented by Charles Baudelaire's poem L'examen de minuit ( English translations ). When it's over, it will be interesting to see how much of this sketch remains in the final version!

In March, I announced the creation concert "Acquainted with the night" , during which we premièred five new musical compositions on Robert Frost's poem . I just posted the live recording. It features singer Michael Barrett (I was playing the basset-horn and live electronics).

You are invited to the last concert of the 2009-2010 HGNM season. Concert is Saturday, May 15th, 8pm, in Harvard Music Department's Paine Hall. The Neue Vocalsolisten Stuttgart are performing seven new compositions, including my work Risorius , and new works by my colleagues: Edgar Barroso 's Metamorphoseon Bert Van Herck 's Psalm Kristian Ireland 's Opposing Stricture Hannah Lash 's We on Earth: Migration Karola Obermüller 's mass:distance:time Hillary Zipper's Aventine Program notes I composed Risorius in 2005-2006 as the third part of the cycle Arc-en-ciel . Risorius is a facial muscle, which pulls the corners of the mouth laterally. In 2004, I started exploring the musical potential of laughter with Zygomatic , a composition for voice & live electronics. Both works are part of a long tradition of compositions using laughter, such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Magic Flute , the 1923 OKeh Laughing Record , or Karlheinz Stockhausen's Luci...

Rêver is a composition for dancing clarinetist and singing dancer. It is the result of a great collaboration with choreographer and dancer Alice Gervais-Ragu. Enjoy the video (2004, Spirales tour of the Ensemble New Flore ): Karlheinz Stockhausen and Johann Sebastian Bach Rêver is the green piece from the Arc-en-ciel cycle . This pas de deux is of course influenced by the work of Karlheinz Stockhausen . Indeed, performing In Freundschaft was my first contact with a composition for moving musician. As a composer, Stockhausen is unique by the different ways in which he incorporated movement in his work. He asked several dancers to work with him (notably Michèle Noiret and Alain Louafi ), and notated movement in his musical scores. But I really composed Rêver as an homage to Johann Sebastian Bach . The piece is both a "Canon Contrarium Stricte Reversum" and a "Canon Cancrizans". It is a retrograde (or "crab") canon in contrary motion, that references...

Zygomatic is a composition for voice and live electronics. It is part of the Arc-en-ciel cycle . The premiere took place on June 17th, 2005, in Le Palot, Montbéliard, France. The wonderful singer was Isabelle Jost, while I was performing the live electronics. Listen to the concert recording here (click the play button) or there: Zygomatic on last.fm (download is also possible). A personalized sonorous score During the first part of the recording, you will hear only the voice, no electronic music. This is normal! The live electronics generate in real time a personalized sonorous score. The score is sonorous : the singer hears the score (a kind of electronic music) thanks to a wireless in-ear monitor. The score is personalized : it is generated live by transformations of the first 10 seconds of the voice part. But what does it mean, to interpret a sonorous score? Here is the text I wrote in the score, in 2005: " Interpréter une partition sonore, c’est orienter son écoute dans...

In 2004, I had a great time touring with the Ensemble New Flore our show " Spirales ", in Strasbourg, Bouxwiller and Geneva. With the dancer and choreograph Alice Gervais-Ragu , we performed my composition " Rêver " for dancing clarinetist and singing dancer. Working on that piece has been a terrific experience. I look forward to working again with Alice on a new project of hers: a show featuring four artists who have all an appetite for both movement and sound. I say appetite, for the show will be centered around the topic "cook." Jean-François.