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Trio
2023
Clarinet
Guitar
Piano
- Program Notes
- Back in September 2022, my friend and guitarist Nathan Andrien, studying in the same Conservatoire as me, was preparing what would be his biggest project to date: a multi-axis collaboration between the Royal Conservatoire of Liege (Belgium) and Budapest’s Zeneakadémia, where he went to study as part of a two-semesters Erasmus program the year before. This project was based on 4 young composition students, two from each Conservatoire, who would write a piece (on a free thematic) for a designed ensemble: each ensemble was different. As part of this project, I had the honour and pleasure to write for a quartet with a guitar- a thing that was pretty hard to imagine for me, knowing absolutely nothing on guitar counterpoint and techniques. After going through days and weeks of blank pages, I tried myself by using Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt’s phone app “ Oblique Strategies ”. This app brings sentences, or even just words, to help artists and composers to find ideas to create new stuff. Opening the app for the first time, I read the words: “ Ghost Echoes ”. They immediately drove me to a mind full of inspiration, and lead me to imagine a two-part work with a haunting melody, floating over the score like a ghost, and resonating (like an echo) in every instrument all through the piece. Not only was it difficult to find a melody that would geniunely “ pop ” in the head of the listener and then never leave (especially in contemporary music), but to find something that would have the same impact while played by a clarinet, a piano or a guitar - three instruments that have very different volume ambitus -, was a war in my brain. After the premiere though, most of the people in the audience did have this main theme in their head for the following weeks. Let’s say that I haunted them more than I expected...
- Performer Credits
- Nathan Andrien ; Utku Cetin ; Zacharie Tavier