the Présences festival makes the unheard of heard, in creation or in revival

Pianist François-Frédéric Guy, in October 2021, in Soissons (Aisne). LYODOH KANEKO

Created in 1991 by journalist Claude Samuel (1931-2020), the Présences de Radio France festival allows music lovers who are not cold in their ears to take the pulse, if not the tone (because there is not really one anymore which dominates) of contemporary music. Presences is indeed defined as a “festival of creations”, that is to say an event that offers many works for the first time. From this point of view, it is difficult to find better, during this 32^e edition, than the concert given, Saturday, February 12, by the Proxima Centauri ensemble: four world premieres (and as many composers) with the common points of the instrumental force (piano, percussion, flute, saxophone) and the use of a device electroacoustic. The first has it all. Delicate timbres, an original, coherent subject and a touch of fantasy. Between emulsion of colors and emulation of gestures, the Shadows enveloping by Raphaèle Biston (born in 1975) immediately set the bar high enough for the unheard of. Without seeking innovation at all costs, as the three pieces to come will do with little success.

Laborious exploration of mannered playing modes (rubbing a cymbal or a kitchen whisk with a bow!), An Hourglass on a Spine Axis, by Elena Rykova (born in 1991), is of very limited musical interest. Ambitious projection of excessively disparate sound objects, Mogari, by Didier Rotella (born in 1982), lacks style. As for the staging of “hybrid instruments” operated in You knew by Juan Arroyo (born in 1981), she is ready to smile. Black hooded jacket on the back and shield-like loudspeaker attached to the arm, the musicians above all evoke a “hybridization” black blocks and CRS…

sound management

The confrontation on the poster for the next concert, a recital by pianist François-Frédéric Guy (born in 1969), turns out to be much more fruitful. It concerns Tristan Murail (born in 1947), headliner of Presences 2022, and Claude Debussy (1862-1918), bridgehead of 20th century modernity.^e century. To the youngest the honor of opening the ban with a referenced creation: Print, rising sun. Like the trackers of the unheard of championed by the Proxima Centauri ensemble, Tristan Murail lets us hear the gestation of sound, for example by strumming the piano strings in the low register, but this event is not the result of an experimental will. Resonance becomes the key to a fascinating expression that plays with the contours of multiple clouds of sound.

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