UNRISEN (2016) [28.00]
commissioned by Françoise and Jean-Philippe Billarant
watch teaser
watch the world premiere (lo-fi)
world premiere
27_06_2016 ManiFeste 2016 - Ircam
Mariangela Vacatello - piano
Quatuor Zaïde - string quartet
Serge Lemouton - computer music designer
Jérémie Bourgogne - sound engeneer
Computer design carried out at IRCAM-Centre Pompidou Studios
IRCAM’s computer music designer: Serge Lemouton
dedication: a Françoise e Jean-Philippe Billarant
Instrumentation
SmartPianoQuintet
UNRISEN - for SmartPianoQuintet
The word “unrisen” has at least two meanings: “not risen” and “not resurrected”.
And true enough, this piece for a quintet of “smart” instruments does not ascend to divine loftiness, as seen in the electronics that eschew an omnipotent tone and identify with the human dimension. The electronic sound is diffused throughout the interior of the instruments, there being no more speakers.
The new lutherie, along with the advent of Smart Instruments, has led to renewed examination of the listening aspect. It appears that technological innovation redefines its goals by assuming the principle of a new kind of interaction, one more tactile and affective, and more dynamic in production.
There is a true melding of bodies (the transducers are combined with the instruments) and sources of sound as the artificial blends with that which is human, providing bionic vocal cords. All lies within, concealed. The instruments vibrate with the electronic sound that is injected into them, while they themselves produce sound.
It’s a “pre-modernity” (pre-technological) vision that puts questions to the material regardless of either the technological or linguistic value that comprises or denotes it.
Its consistency is hybrid and airy, but stunning is the multiplication of the sources: as dusk falls, there is tension.
Birth is not the expectation of revelation, but the tense perception of potential.