Program

• Olivier MESSIAEN : Oiseaux exotiques (for piano and small orchestra)
• Philippe LEROUX : Total SOLo (for twenty-eight musicians)
• Thierry ESCAICH : Chorus (for clarinet, string quartet and piano)
• Lionel BORD : Folia, for six instruments (World premiere, commissioned by the Ensemble intercontemporain and Radio France)

Dimitri Vassilakis, piano
Ensemble intercontemporain
André De Ridder, director

Coproduction Ensemble intercontemporain, Radio France
As part of the Presences Festival 2018

Description

Created in 1956 by the Domaine Musical ensemble (founded by Pierre Boulez), Exotic Birds by Olivier Messiaen could be compared to a treatise on rhythm, color and, of course, ornithology: “The exotic birds that sing in this score have wonderful colorful plumages. These very bright colors are in the music: all the colors of the rainbow circulate there […]. The work also includes Greek and Hindu rhythms, entrusted to percussion … “. Colors and rhythms irrigate the whole program of this concert proposed in the context of this 28th edition of Presences: de Chorus festival (1998), sextet with accents of improvised jazz by Thierry Escaich at Total SOLo (2014) by Philippe Leroux, a meticulous exploration of relations between soloists and ensemble, not to mention the new creation of Lionel Bord, Folia, on the theme of the border, sometimes thin, between reason and madness. A shadowy area of ​​the human being already treated several times by the composer and bassoonist: “This is a recurring dimension of my work which consists in exploring musically the fragility of the soul, its paradoxes, even its contradictions”.