Latest pieces
…Some recent pieces I’ve composed.
Scores available upon request –
FUTUR
SCÈNES
(as always) listen loud with headphones!
2024
for string orchestra 4 4 3 2 1
durata 8′
written for Musica Vitae, première 17 May 2024, Nygatan 6, Växjö, conducted by Michael Bartosch.
“Futur Scènes” tells of upcoming scenes in a future music theater piece. It is built upon transmissions of acoustic energy: accumulation, exaggeration, breaking point. During the time I was composing Musicomexp, I found groups of insects on the island of Ghaomai in the Solomon Islands, repeating acoustic patterns over 16-18 second-long periods. I imagined they managed to figure such a passing of time by basing it on their perception of the accumulation and release of acoustic energy. The title refers to the bootleg anthology zine futur musique from Rotterdam. /Aurélie 8-4-24
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DUELL för horn och inspelad sång
Playing a string instrument, what appeared to me as the strangest thing about playing the horn is the notes not being linearly aligned, but reached within the specific space of each overtone series – this is the starting point for all material in this piece. The other strangeness was the possibility to totally trick the acoustics of the space, as a horn played open forte can be almost only indirect field (reverb) so pretty much non localizable, but also, in the case of a muted sound, almost exclusively direct sound – without reverb although played in a closed space.
I turned this paradox into an impossible duet, a confrontation between two players that never meet: a hornist, playing live in a concert hall, and a singer, recorded in audio, and present as an idea in a projected singing mouth. The tape allows many acoustic tricks impossible in reality, from an opera voice without reverb, to evolution and granulation of different parameters.
The hornist and singer play together, but also against each other, this duel gradually growing towards a breaking point. Anything after that point is hypothetical (hence the voice in the last part, and the muted horn), as the communication between the two players seems impossible. The sentence from Kierkegaard gets weak out of context (Enten-Eller), so it is used here purely as a means for the voice not attempting to communicate. //Aurélie 24.03.24
2024
for horn and recorded voice
durata 4′
written for Sören Hermansson, première 6 May 2024, Kungasalen, Stockholm.
“Lykkens dør, den går ikke indad, så at man ved at storme løs på den kan trykke den op; men den går ud efter, og man har derfor intet at gøre.”
(La porte du bonheur s’ouvre vers l’extérieur, si l’on s’élance vers elle pour la forcer elle se referme, il n’y a rien à faire.)
Søren Kierkegaard, Enten – Eller
Horn: Sören Hermansson
Danish voice: Gry Søbye
Soprano voice: Eleonora Poignant
Video: Aurélie Ferrière
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Snømaskn (chimera)
Listen here (with headphones! the piece is in binaural, 3D audio) or on the Acoustic Atlas (in ambisonics audio)
Below: my artpiece for the piece
Aurélie’s imaginary space
A rare type of marble has been discovered beside a regular mine in the region of XXX in Northern Scandinavia, off a faraway drift deep underneath the surface. An underground excavation is secretly started, that follows the extracting habits of marble quarries from the Alentejo region in Portugal – think, building a pink marble cathedral underground as a monolith. This works fine for a while, as the added dimension of a “roof” do not seem make the whole structure weaker than the usual open-sky excavation site. When the marble runs out, the idea of installing an experimental nuclear reactor in the created space is investigated, as an underground location was believed safer at the time (in the end this reactor will be installed at R1 underneath Stockholm instead). Unfortunately, as years go by the mining ground in the region becomes unstable. The tunnel connecting the “cathedral” to the regular “official” mine is walled off and the space condemned, any trace of information such as exact location is discarded. All remaining equipment is re-labeled as belonging to a company in charge of snow maintenance in a distant city. Since the exact location of the secret marble excavation cannot be displayed, we are using as GPS coordinates a barycenter of all mines in production in the area in the late 60s, when the unusual snow maintenance equipment mentioned above was reported.
Echoes and Reflections is a series of 9 sound works created by artists commissioned by the Acoustic Atlas. These works bring a unique experience to listeners by combining virtual acoustic heritage sites with composition, whilst reflecting on the myth and meaning of Echo. Everything about our consciousness seems to be a continuing process of mirroring – from language, behavior, empathy, sharing tweets and internet memes. Music is the most delightful mirroring of consciousness that ripples in our minds to continue its evolution. Music can also be the matter that crosses all boundaries between interior (body-mind) space and exterior world, which in turn is so beautifully mirrored in architecture with its play between exterior landscape or elements and interior closeness or safety.
– Cobi van Tonder
2022
Fixed media, a piece in ambisonics + an imagined acoustics as an IR (impulse response)
durata 5’34
I was commissioned a work for the Acoustic Atlas by Cobi van Tonder. The Atlas is a fascinating website where you can pick an acoustic space anywhere on the globe and listen to yourself in it (if you have headphones and a mic!).
The commission included both a music piece, which I’ve called Snømaskn (chimera), and a space, which I’ve imagined and conceived to be used in the Atlas. You’ll find the stories of both my piece and my space below, my corresponding artworks as well as Cobi’s notes on the concept of Echoes and Reflections.
ABOUT THE PIECE
Chimera through time-space reflection
I had this idea to make something “impossible” – or unreal, as a “chimera”: an impossible appearance of sources originating in an electric or electronic process, in an acoustic atmosphere where they do not belong. The resulting space is an attempt to connect several different acoustic worlds through immaterial underground paths.
To enter the imaginary space, listen to the piece: it starts with electronic drops, like morse signals from an unreachable space. The space builds up as the narrative develops around an interview with the snow maintenance company for railways, from processed news prep archive tapes from the 60s, that I process time-wise – thinking of “mirroring” as a timely process, time running back and forth, continuing into another subject about future space stations.
“Mais tu ne peux pas l’entendre,
la chimère aux yeux de rêve/de verre.
Et où disparaît la route
Quand la nuit tombe sur nous ?”
(But you can’t hear it, you’re the chimera with eyes made of glass/of dreams. And where does the road disappear, when the night falls us?) (Cikatri$, Quand la Nuit Tombe sur Nous)
Drums played by Jonas Jonsson
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How to draw a helicon
2021
“For three young pianists and a grand piano”
durata 6′
Performed and discussed in the final of the 2022 Mauricio Kagel Composition Competition in Vienna: first performed by students from the mdw then discussed by the jury – indeed I did not win, but that’s still quite a journey for this littlepiece involving talking, falling, screaming, rolling under the piano, etc.
Programme notes :
This is the story of a question asked in a world where it doesn’t have an answer.
Still of course, many will try to make sense and find something to say.
While untangling all these voices, the three players progressively find themselves caught up in a whirl, like falling endlessly along the shape of a helix.
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Propositions (variations)
sur le thème du prélude de μ…*
Variations on the theme of a lullaby sung in the prelude of μ…
(*μ is a Bühnenwerk mit Musik in progress)
2021
for solo viola
durata 3′
written for A, not premièred