L'Instant Donné
instrumental ensemble

The instrumental ensemble L'Instant Donné has the particularity of performing contemporary music without a conductor, in groups of up to ten musicians. Formed in 2002 and based in Montreuil (Seine-Saint-Denis) since 2005, the ensemble brings together a team of eleven, including nine musicians. We operate on a collegial basis, with artistic and economic choices, workplace management, concert organization, scheduling and touring all discussed in common. Musical creation is a priority, accounting for a significant proportion of the ensemble's activities, and work with composers is developed on a long-term basis. The ensemble performs recent repertoire as well as selected pieces from the classical era, and is happy to work with regular partners (vocal ensembles, singers, conductors, sound engineers, choreographers, actors, etc.). Since 2007, L'Instant Donné has been a regular guest at the Festival d'Automne à Paris, offering some thirty concerts a year in France and abroad. L'Instant Donné collaborates with leading European radio stations. 2018 sees the release of a double CD on the NoMadMusic label devoted to the works of Gérard Pesson. L'Instant Donné is associated with the Nouveau Théâtre de Montreuil from 2018 to 2021. Every last Sunday of the month, L'Instant Donné musicians organize free listening workshops at La Marbrerie in Montreuil. Finally, the ensemble takes part in international academies for graduate students. L'Instant Donné is associated with the Nouveau Théâtre de Montreuil - Centre Dramatique National, and is supported by the Ministère de la Culture / DRAC Île-de-France as a company with national and international influence, by the Département de Seine-Saint-Denis as an artistic residency, and by SPEDIDAM and Sacem - la culture avec la copie privée. 

Georges Aperghis
composer

Born in Athens in 1945, Georges Aperghis has lived and written in Paris since 1963. His work is distinguished by its questioning of language and meaning. His compositions, whether instrumental, vocal or theatrical, explore the boundaries of the intelligible, and he likes to create "false trails" that enable him to captivate the listener (stories are born but are contradicted or stopped dead in their tracks).
Aperghis' work cannot be formally linked to any of the dominant musical aesthetics of contemporary musical creation. It is part of its century through dialogue with other art forms and a radical openness to the other. This otherness is combined with innovation when he integrates machines, automata or robots into his performances. Aperghis works closely with a group of performers who participate fully in the creative process of his shows. These include actors (such as Edith Scob, Michael Lonsdale, Valérie Dréville, Jos Houben), instrumentalists (such as Jean- Pierre Drouet, Richard Dubelski, Geneviève Strosser, Nicolas Hodges, Uli Fussenegger) and vocalists (Martine Viard, Donatienne Michel-Dansac and Lionel Peintre). From the 1990s onwards, new forms of collaboration with dance (Johanne Saunier, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker) and the visual arts (Daniel LÉvy, Kurt D'Haeseleer, Hans Op de Beeck) were added. Europe's leading contemporary music ensembles have developed a working relationship with Aperghis through regular commissions, all integrated into their repertoire (such as the ensembles Ictus, Klangforum Wien, Remix, Musikfabrik, Ensemble Modern, Intercontemporain, or the Vocalsolisten and SWR Choir).
" Aperghis has certainly acquired the freedom to stand on the acrobat's edge, to risk the fall. But unlike some others, he knows that when the acrobat falls, he doesn't fall into the void, he falls onto other wires, in which case he can jump, all the more so! You can negotiate danger, play with it, put it on the horizon, make it a point of escape. With him, it's always there, constantly reemerging, at every opportunity, every time irruption elements are introduced, not to create points of rupture with the chain of formal complexity, but to bring in other matters of expression." Excerpt from L'hétérogénèse, an interview between Felix Guattari and Georges Aperghis transcribed by Antoine Gindt.
Recent distinctions: Mauricio Kagel Prize 2011, the Golden Lion for his body of work at the Venice Biennale 2015, Frontiers of Knowledge Prize 2016 in the Contemporary Music category - BBVA Foundation, Kaske Foundation Prize Munich 2016 - Grand Prix SACD 2018 - Ernst von Siemens Music Prize 2021.
Georges Aperghis' self-published pieces are available at www.aperghis.com.
His other pieces are published by Durand Salabert Eschig (Universal Music Publishing Classical) www.durand-salabert-eschig.com

Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber
composer

Born in Strasbourg in 1973, Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber is a Franco-Swiss national. After studying flute, she went on to study composition with Sergio Ortega, Allain Gaussin, Ivan Fedele, Philippe Leroux and Frédéric Durieux. She is a graduate of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and attended the composition and new technologies course at Ircam.
Her music, between notes, noises and silence, is in search of lightness and affirms a taste for mischief. Open to the other arts, she tackles all genres, from solo to orchestra, from mixed music to opera. She is performed in France and abroad by leading soloists and ensembles. She was awarded the Prix Francis et Mica Salabert in 2006, the Prix de composition Georges Enesco from SACEM in 2007, the Prix Hervé Dugardin from SACEM in 2017 and the Prix Nadia et Lili Boulanger from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2021. She was a Villa Kujoyama laureate in 2008 and a Villa Médicis resident from 2010 to 2011.

Bastien David
composer

Bastien David is a composer fascinated by the diversity of the living world. Through his music, he explores the life forms of sound. The sensitive relationships between sounds and their ability to move in time and space are the foundations of his inspiration. Invited by the Bavarian State Ministry for Science and the Arts, Bastien will compose at Villa Concordia the continuation of a major cycle begun in 2020 with Urban song. This new work, commissioned for the opening of the Festival Présences 2023, will combine the soloists of the Ensemble Intercontemporain, the Radio France Maîtrise and the timbre of the Métallophone under the direction of Tito Ceccherini.
A resident at Villa Médicis and winner of the Prix Hervé Dugardin, Bastien is Ensemble 2e2m's artist-in-residence for the 2022-23 season. He studied composition with Bernard Cavanna and José Manuel Lopez Lopez at the Conservatoire de Gennevilliers, then with Gérard Pesson at the CNSMDP. Her music, published by Éditions Henry Lemoine, has been performed by ensembles and orchestras such as Ensemble Intercontemporain, Orchestre Geneva Camerata, Orchestre d'Auvergne, TM +, L'Instant Donné, Court-circuit, Aleph, 2e2m, La main harmonique, KDM, EOC, Zafraan-ensemble, XAMP. She performs internationally, most recently at the Festival du Printemps des Arts de Monte-Carlo, where she premiered L'ombre d'un doute, her concerto for two cellos and string orchestra. The compositions of Phaidra for actress Fanny Ardant and Bec et Ongles for violinist Renaud Capuçon, were striking for the intense experience these encounters invoked.
Les Métamorphoses, premiered last May in the Radio France auditorium, is the first work composed for the 216 blades of the Metallophone, a microtonal percussion instrument invented by the composer. Les Insectes and the Métallophone will travel to meet audiences, bringing this immersive, gestural and sonorous ballet to life over the long term. www.lesinsectes.fr.