Recording residency for Erwan Keravec's 5th solo album.
Since 2007 and his first solo album "Urban Pipes", Erwan has been working on new forms for the bagpipes.
"In 2007, I presented my utopia: to make the bagpipe a universal instrument.
That is, to imagine music for solo bagpipes that does not evoke its cultural origin. Or, above all, to imagine music that is just music, that has no other function than to be listened to.
Since then, I've admitted my inability to achieve this goal, because my original culture, the tradition sounded in Brittany, influences me even when I try to extract myself from it. I've chosen to embrace it and affirm what, for me, characterizes it: the projection of sound, its density, the energy of the ringer, the melody. While retaining what symbolized the work of the first opus: "a modification of traditional modes and stops, a work on the sound use of the bagpipe and its harmonic strangeness, leaving behind strictly melodic practice."
For a while, I wanted to work on the rupture of sound as a negation of the very principle of the instrument. For this new record, I'm going to return to continuous sound with a single-stroke piece. Each scene will be gradually colonized by the next." - Erwan Keravec
Production
Offshore
Erwan Keravec
Instrumentalist
Erwan Keravec is a piper, composer and improviser. He explores improvised music, from free jazz to noise, and builds up a repertoire of contemporary music. He also composes, plays and improvises for dance.
Erwan Keravec began his career with Bagad de Lokoal Mendon. From 1996, he explored free jazz with the Lyon-based collective ARFI.Alongside Niou Bardophones (2000), he improvises with Jean-Luc Cappozzo, Air brut (2010).
Since 2007, he has been refining his research into bagpipes far removed from his native culture with Urban Pipes (2007) and Urban Pipes II (2011). To clarify his intentions, he commissioned the solo works that make up the Nu Piping program (2011). He initiated 19 works by 17 composers. For the Sonneurs quartet (2015), he commissioned 12 works. This work around traditional instruments will give rise to IN C // 20 SONNEURS (2022) and 8 SONNEURS POUR PHILIP GLASS (2024).
In 2009, he met Basque singer Beñat Achiary, Ametsa (2011). He developed the VOX program (2013) with 4 works for bagpipe and voice: soprano and baritone. This program will be extended to Extended VOX (2019) with Les Cris de Paris through 2 commissions. At the same time, he created Blind (2015), a piece for blindfolded audiences, and Revolutionary Birds (2015) with Mounir Troudi and Wassim Halal. Closer to experimental music, he collaborates with Swedish composer Mats Gustafsson (2015) and American Hamid Drake (2019). With Julien Desprez and Will Guthrie, he created the White Sands trio (2019).
He multiplies his collaborations in the choreographic field, writing, performing or improvising with Gaëlle Bourges: Le Marin acéphale (1999), Homothétie 949 (2002), À mon seul désir (2014), Conjurer la peur (2017), Cécile Borne: Robes fanées (2008), Boris Charmatz: Enfant (2011), Emmanuelle Huynh (2015), Mickaël Phelippeau: membre fantôme (2016), Alban Richard: breathisdancing (2017), Jordi Gali: Anima (2022).
Erwan Keravec
bagpipes
Manu Le Duigou
sound engineer