Jean-Francois Charles

We just had a great run of rehearsals last week with percussionist Maxime Échardour . Maxime really enjoyed the sound of the bells built from recycled materials by musician & maker Van Hien Bui: Van-Hien also built a cimbalom that Maxime is going to play: The list of instruments featured for the première will look like: vibraphone with motor (3 octaves is enough) 3 toms tam 4 DIY bells, tuned to C#, D, G, F# (left to right for the performer) a F# Thai gong a F# ancient cymbal - crotale a DIY cimbalom and a DIY mono string instrument hidden behind the cimbalom on the pic below, an electronic Farfisa F326 keyboard! no bongos: we ended-up not using the ones on the pic below . For the Chanson section, 4th part of the score , I wrote out a possible realization just for Maxime to play mainly on the vibraphone:

I am sad to report that Sculptor and composer Oscar Wiggli passed away on January 26th, 2016. He was 88 years old. I had the great pleasure to meet with this unique Swiss artist and his wife Janine in 2013. We visited them with Master students who were working on a digital re-creation of the Syhamo, a hybrid synthesizer with digital processing & analog sound synthesis, one of the first interactive pieces of art with live sensor-controlled sound synthesis. Oscar Wiggli in his workshop. There in Muriaux, we discovered the amazing sculptures kept by the Fondation Oscar et Janine Wiggli . We also met director Claude Stadelmann, who was shooting a documentary on Oscar. This film was shown on the Swiss public channel 2 weeks ago, and is still streaming for 15 days on the RTS-2 web site - you have to stream it from Switzerland: Oscar Wiggli, sculpteur et compositeur. It is a wonderful document, with beautiful footage of Oscar Wiggli working at the Von Roll furnaces. Here is an excer...

Every Tuesday! Do not miss the Nautilis concerts at the Beaj Kafé , a new coffee shop in Brest. Nautilis is a jazz collective of great musicians including Christophe Rocher (clarinets), Vincent Raude (electronics), Nicolas Poniard (drums), Nicolas Peoc’h (saxes), Frédéric Bargeon Briet (bass), Philippe Champion (trumpet), and Christofer Bjurström (piano). Tonight, accordionist Céline Rivoal is performing a beautiful recital of new music for accordion. I am accompanying her with live electronics for two short pieces (including Testo ). See you there!

I just wrote a couple of notes for the Electrocution 2016 festival: we are performing the première on April 2nd. Passage (2015-2016) for percussion & live electronics Duration: 7 minutes Passage evokes the transition from one state of life to another. The passage may open new horizons, such as when the larva abandons his exuviae to take its dragonfly flight ; it may also hold a detoxification function, as when the crab gets rid of heavy metals while molting. In this composition, new sonic horizons are revealed not only by spatialization & sound processing, but mostly by acoustic research on new instruments made from recycled materials. The pizza pan completed its transformation into an anaquaphone , the coffee cans turned into a cimbalom. Many thanks to artist Henri-Pierre Deroux and multi-instrumentalist Van Hien Bui for the design and loan of novel instruments. Percussion part Here is the first page of the extended percussionist's part, with more space than the orig...

The score for Karlheinz Stockhausen 's Mikrophonie I is beautiful, but not usable for a concert. My own Mikrophonie score is a gift from Stockhausen; I had to cut & paste copies to arrange a performance score with possible page turns: Next rehearsal this afternoon ( first one took place last summer ).

This morning's version of the percussion part for Passage , a composition for percussion & live electronics: To be premièred in 2016!

I'm proud to participate for the first time in the Hour of Code event. This year, I'm hosting one Hour of Code for 2 groups of 15 kids - I'm meeting with the second group tomorrow. After talking with their primary school teacher, I decided to go with the "Frozen" hour of code: the kids have been playing with geometrical figures, drawing stars and patterns, so this is a good tutorial for them to go over. Also, in a way, it brings together art & science. In case you haven't tried it yourself, do not hesitate: go to code.org , and do code for an hour: everyone can learn!