Contents, contributors

Alain Savouret

1 – Holophony and dis-orientation of the act of listening (July, 22nd, 10AM)

Holophony is a technique for sound recording and diffusion that I contrast with compositional methods involving “frontal” (including multichannel) projection of sound that distance listeners as before a proscenium stage. Holophony requires listeners to be placed in a circle with no favoured axis, therefore inside of the “sound scene”. I began experimenting with this technique in 1972 at the Service de la Recherche of the Office Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (L’arbre et cætera was the first real tetraphonic piece). Because of implementation difficulties I did not explore the technique again until the 1990s, developing the (penta- and hexaphonic) process at La Rochelle’s Studio Delta P (with video editing), at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse in Paris and with the Groupe de musique expérimentale in Albi.

2 – Illuminations and Generalised Polyphony (July, 23rd, 10AM)

An approach inspired by XI and XIII century forms of representation such as motets and illuminated manuscripts; my perception of composition is a means of seeking coherence in discrepancy. Aiming towards a sort of “concrete rhetoric” allows a move away from conventional narrative. An insistence on the nature of sounds rather than their value as part of a system, a look at the aesthetics of rupture, of intervals and connections brought together in the same beat.

3 – Work Mastery (July, 24th, 10AM)

The “building” techniques of generalised polyphony, previously applied to some of my electroacoustic compositions as well as to large-scale temporal and spatial works involving diverse “musical populations”. An analysis of various strategies used in the trans-departmental motet Roi Artus implemented in Saint-Sever (1986/1987) under the auspices of the Conseil Général des Landes. Participants: five classes of schoolchildren (9 – 10 years old) and their teachers, one amateur adult choir, one instrumental ensemble, two soloists (one saxophonist and one organist), one traditional Gascony ensemble.

4 - “Aurality” as part of musical training (July, 25th, 10AM)

How can we approach a global instrumental, vocal and gestural music practice that does away with a written score and is not based on the learning of a code? A look at the theory of the audible and free improvisation. Various instrumentalists will participate in “Deciphering Hearing” exercises demonstrating the important contribution of the use of loudspeakers. Each one will then be invited to improvise, basing their work on short “Loudspeaking Pieces” that they will discover for the first time.

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Alain Savouret was classically trained at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse (CNSMD) in Paris by Elsa Barraine, Olivier Messiaen and Marcel Beaufils among others and undertook more experimental training at the Service de la Recherche of the Office Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française (ORTF) under Pierre Schaeffer.

As a result his approach is fundamentally experimental and transversal, encompassing electroacoustic and instrumental composition, orchestral conducting and non-idiomatic improvisation. His practice was developed according to the needs of various institutional venues, often in accordance with the training needs of the local population, leading him to develop the concept of “work mastery”. “Work mastery” refers to a circumstance-based long-term act of creation shared with specific “societies”, their social and musical customs, surroundings and heritage. Examples of state commissions include among others Roi Artus, created in the French department of Les Landes in 1987, Célébration orphéonique in Seine et Marne in 1989, Fort-Nieulay in collaboration with the town of Calais in 1991 and Veillée composée in the Auvergne region in 1992.

This inventive approach puts context (with whom, when, where, why?) before text (here, a categorical and imperative score), leading Savouret to develop “aurality” as part of his theoretical reflexion on musical practice. Separation of time and space and self-organisation rather than determinism lead to a constructive challenge of established codes and techniques, in which constantly renewed listening processes come before savoir-faire.

In 1992, Xavier Darasse commissioned him to develop this approach at the CNSMD in Paris, of which he was director at the time. The project took the form of a class entitled “Generative Improvisation” hosted by the Conservatoire’s department of classical and contemporary instrumental disciplines. Savouret related the experience in Introduction to a Theory of the Audible – Free Improvisation as a Practical Tool (Published by Symétrie in 2010).

He has to this day composed over sixty concert titles (including instrumental, vocal, electroacoustic and mixed compositions) as well as several teaching works, works for the stage (chamber opera, dance and theatre) and experimental holophonic image and sound compositions (Fragments, pour mémoire, Le son de danses) mainly commissioned by regional and state authorities and publicly-funded organisations.

He was a member of the Groupe de recherche musicale of the ORTF (1968 to 1971), named associate composer of the Groupe de musique expérimentale in Bourges in 1972, awarded the Grand Prix des compositeurs by the Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique (SACEM) in 1982, a member of the French Culture Ministry’s Conseil scientifique de la recherche musicale et chorégraphique (1990 to 1993), and a member of the Académie internationale de musique electroacoustique (1995 to 2005).

Gaël Tissot

Gaël Tissot discovered music through the study of piano. From 2002 onwards, during his musicology studies at the university of Toulouse, he attends the composition course of the Conservatory in Bertrand Dubedout’s class as well as Fançois-Michel Rignol’s piano perfecting class in Perpignan.

Author of a thesis on the electroacoustic music of François Bayle and his relation to the visual field, he also completed his composer training at the Centre International de Recherches Musicales in Nice (framework in which he carried out a 3-month residency at the university of Berkeley in California) and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique of Lyon, before joining, in 2011, the group of éOle composers (Toulouse).

From his music, as well instrumental as electroacoustic, emanates a work on plasticity, a play on the outlines of sound and the noticeable forms that can flow from it. He is also the author of numerous international musicological publications, and his music is played in France as well as abroad (Nuits bleues, Tage für neue Musik Darmstadt, festival Occitània, université de Cologne...). Gaël Tissot founded the artistic collective hapax in 2013, and he is currently his artistic director.

Guillaume Hermen

Following his studies in cinema and sound engineering, Guillaume Hermen studied electroacoustic composition under Bertrand Dubedout at the Conservatory of Toulouse. Inspired by the freedom in the creations of contemporary artists such as Gyorgy Ligeti, Paul Klee, John Cage, Pierre Henry, Jimi Hendrix or John Coltrane, he decided to focus on instrumental composition and began studying with Philippe Leroux and Thierry Blondeau. Since 2011, he has been studying under the direction of Gerard Pesson at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris.

Influenced by the rhythms of the polyphonic vocals of the African Pygmies, classical Indian music and artists such as Bill Viola, Morton Feldman or Steve Coleman, he builds his work around rhythm construction. His pieces center on creating links between gesture and sound, writing and improvisation, real and virtual, and explore the illusions associated with them. He has collaborated with many ensembles such as the Ensemble Inter Contemporain, Cairn, TM +, Art'ung Duo and the musician-improviser Sylvain Darrifourcq.