Jean-Francois Charles

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 .

The Whole Note is a wonderful music magazine serving Toronto and Southern Ontario. I am very proud that they chose to review the new album Electroclarinet : Three tracks are also available during the month of February in their Listening Room . Thanks for listening!

Here are two albums I have listened to a lot in 2018: Residente's first album and Ute Lemper's Paris Days, Berlin Nights. I found Residente 's music very fresh and inspiring. The Residente album (amazon link) is truly Third Stream music: he didn't limit himself to mixing influences from around the world, but he really managed to invite musicians from different cultures to give their best and be part of a new sound. Ute Lemper is a wonderful performer. Paris Days, Berlin Nights is excellent, not just because of the singer, but also thanks to the arrangements crafted by composer and conductor Stefan Malzew . He arranged the whole repertoire for string quartet, bass, and either accordion, piano, or clarinet. The refinement of the string writing is among the very best that you'll find in such a cabaret or song context: Stefan Malzew came up with a very imaginative and beautiful variety of timbres. I hope you have a chance to listen to this music, and you have a...

A picture of scientific glassblower Benj Revis and his wonderful water clock is featured in the University of Iowa's Office of the Vice-President for Research Holiday Greetings and New Year 2019 Card ! The picture was taken during the dress rehearsal for the Musical Chemistry show in April 2018. Happy New Year!

From time to time, I share here some interesting readings. If you're curious, see what I was reading in 2011 and 2013 . Here are three books I really enjoyed this year; I learnt a lot out of them! In July, I read Writing Better Lyrics (amazon links) . Pat Pattison explains very clearly his vision on writing song lyrics. The book is well illustrated with analysis of song lyrics and practice exercices directly connected to the content of the different chapters. Moreover, as I am not a native English speaker, this book helped me understand song-specific concepts of meter and rime, which are very different than meter and rime in French poetry! As you can see in my work, I've been passionate about art and technology: it was almost obvious for me to read Leonardo da Vinci by Walter Isaacson. It turns out that I had lost of pleasure throughout the book, even more than I expected. I learnt a great deal about Leonardo's life, and more generally about the history of art. I high...

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 December 3, students of the MUS:2800 Digital Arts: an Introduction course at the University of Iowa presented their final projects in the Voxman Music Building . Each group had a unique distinctive vibe, which made for a very successful Digital Arts Fair. I hope to share video excerpts at some point; in the meantime, here are pictures for three projects: a beautiful reactive Tic-Tac-Toe , the controls for a video Mood Enhancer and a couple of trash instruments .