Hosted and supported by the GMEM since 2021, the long-term empirical research and creative project “sheng! l’orgue à bouche (2019-2026)” is based on a specific amplification system developed by Wu Wei and Alexis Baskind for the thirty-seven-pipe sheng (mouth organ). This project encourages new writing composed for the augmented instrument, and also invites visual artists.
In this creative concert, the audience discovers a light installation by Caty Olive.
Julie Zhu makes us hear the sounds produced by the act of drawing, transforming them in real time.
Wu Wei and Alexis Baskind place the listener inside the sheng, in the image of the “Forest of Pipes”.
André Serre-Milan presents the sheng as a revelation of human breathing.
A traditional instrument dating back 3,000 years, the mouth organ repertoire is divided between the traditional (linked to the Song dynasty and the Japanese imperial court – Gagaku), the “classical” (pieces written after 1956 in China for renovated mouth organs) and the “contemporary” (created from the late 1970s onwards).
Program:
Julie ZHU: Ornithology for sheng, electronics and drawing box (World-premiere)
Wu Wei
master of sheng
Julie Zhu
André Serre-Milan
Wu Wei
Composers
Alexis Baskind
musician, sound engineer, computer music producer
Caty Olive
lighting design
Paul Cameron
electronic design
Liao Lin-Ni
artistic direction
Coproduction
CNCM-GMEM & TPMC – Tout Pour la Musique Contemporaine
Support
Drac Provence-Alpes-Côte d’Azur ; University of Michigan ; MMC – Maison de la Musique Contemporaine
State commission
to write an original musical work 2022
Commissioned by GMEM
André Serre-Milan
Breaths of Life(s)
Acknowledgements
IReMus; Ircam – Centre Pompidou; Césaré (CNCM – Reims); Drac Île-de-France; Collegium Musicæ; GVL – Neustart Kultur; Stanford University; Musée des Confluences; Radio France and Chen Heng
More information in English and French – https://gmem.org/festival-
The In-Between
Saturday 23 September 2023 l 18:00* Time of Paris
La Matrice (11 rue des Martyrs, 75009 Paris)
LI Li-Chin, sheng (mouth organ) – Elsa Marquet-Lienhart, flute
As part of the “sheng! l’orgue à bouche” research and creation programme (2019-2026), our sheng musician – LI Li-Chin, who specialises in the relationship between the body and sound in space – will devise and build a unique programme for La Matrice with her friend, flutist, movement artist and teacher Elsa Marquet-Lienhart.
How can we bring space to life through sound and the inaudible vibrations we emit?
Music becomes visual through the musicality of the two musicians’ bodies. As they play, the echoes of their dancing selves meet. Their movements come into dialogue with the sound music. Between music and movement, improvisation and tradition, the two artists invite you to enter the interstice of their notes, the thickness of their dances and the placeless place of their dreams.
LI Li-Chin is a Taiwanese sheng musician, who strives to express her musical creativity beyond auditory stimuli. In her performance, she wants the audience to enter a world to experience the unknown. She regularly explores her instrument with young composers of contemporary music in France, the United States, Taiwan etc. and plays with European ensembles and orchestras: Cairn in Paris, LINEA in Strasbourg, Lapland Chamber Orchestra in Finland National Chinese Orchestra Taiwan etc.
She has been selected for dozens of artistic residencies in her experimental field, including Royaumont, Ircam, Cité des Arts – Paris, Centre National de la Danse in Pantin, etc. LI Li-Chin is taking part in the research and creation project “sheng! l’orgue à bouche” (2019-2026) organised by the TPMC and supported by the DRAC Ile-de-France, IReMus (CNRS – Sorbonne Université – Ministère de la Culture – BnF), MMC etc.
ELSA MARQUET-LIENHART (flûtiste, actrice de mouvement, pédagogue) :: Graduate of the Conservatorium van Amsterdam in flute, she studied with Juliette Hurel and Vincent Cortvrint. She practised classical and contemporary dance, then African dance with Elsa Wolliaston and the theatricality of movement with Claire Heggen and Yves Marc.
Alongside her career as a musician, she regularly dances for companies and creates shows combining music, theatre and dance. Drawing on her research into transversality, she passes on her work to teachers and students of music and acting at a number of conservatoires (HEMU Lausanne, PôleSup’93, ISDAT, ESMD, Pôle Alienor, etc.).
She is artistic director of the company Accord Mobile, an association that promotes interdisciplinarity and cross-disciplinarity. In 2019, she directed and set in motion the musicians from the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse in Schoenberg’s Pierrot Lunaire, and regularly performs with Joséphine Poncelin.