Launched in 2020, Ircam's Musiques-Fictions collection offers a unique literary and sound experience, combining a contemporary text with a musical creation, in an immersive broadcasting system....
Installed under Ircam's 49-speaker ambisonic diffusion dome, reconstituted in the GMEM Module, the listener is invited to listen to a sound environment with extensive expressive possibilities, reproducing a listening situation close to that of the real world, from the great spectacular stage to the most minute details of intimate discourse.
This Music-Fiction entitled "L'autre fille" is a story by and about Annie Ernaux. She addresses her older sister, who died before she was born, and whose existence she learned of by chance at the age of ten.
The creative and broadcasting device allows us to stage this letter without embodying it, to evoke the author's intimacy through her own voice, her breathing, and the imaginary presence of her body.
A solitary and secret word, which will remain unanswered, except for Aurélien Dumont's refined music, in an adaptation by Daniel Jeanneteau and sound design by Augustin Muller.
Production
Ircam-Centre Pompidou; Théâtre de Gennevilliers
Support
Sacem
Based on
" L'autre fille" by Annie Ernaux (2011) © Édition Nil
In partnership with
la Friche la Belle de Mai
"The music is written for an instrumental trio comprising bass flute, cello and percussion. The electronic writing focuses primarily on the trio's journey through different acoustic spaces, and on a sound reproduction that highlights the physicality of the performers. The music is both an independent voice and an extension of Annie Ernaux's text, particularly in its sonic questioning of the theme of absence. Aesthetically, it excludes any form of illustration or other demonstrative device, and invites us, through a particular work on silence and vibration, to our own interiority."
- Aurélien Dumont
"First and foremost, Annie Ernaux speaks to her sister. And even though it's a letter, written to a sister who died before her own birth and thus never met her, this text has a certain interior orality: it's a dialogue with silence. It's a text that comes naturally to the place of listening, and opens up a space for attentive introspection. Annie Ernaux welcomes us into the work of constructing her consciousness, the work she has carried out with courage and lucidity for so many years, and which links each of her works, it seems to me. To have it read by the author herself was something of an obvious choice, perhaps simply because such a text cannot be interpreted, played out in the distance of an interpretation. Perhaps it is still the gesture of writing that makes it heard, insofar as it is the author's own body that passes through it. Time has passed since this text was written, recounting events that were themselves already long ago. Thanks to the properties of ambisonic diffusion, it is a new and particularly moving element to restore something of Annie Ernaux's presence at this moment in her life, and ten years after she wrote "L'autre fille".
Annie Ernaux is, moreover, an excellent reader, keeping her emotions at a distance, yet letting them filter through without affecting her expression. It's as if she herself were a witness to her writing, to her need to use the written word to question the presence within her of this sister she never knew"
- Daniel Jeanneteau
Annie Ernaux
Writer
Annie Ernaux was born on September1, 1940 in Lillebonne, but spent her childhood in Yvetot, Normandy. From a modest social background, she studied literature, became a qualified teacher and then an agrégée in modern literature. Her first novel, "Les Armoires vides" (1974), already announced the autobiographical nature of her work. Blending personal experience with history, her works deal with her parents' social rise ("La Place", "La Honte"), her marriage ("La Femme gelée"), her sexuality and relationships ("Passion simple", "Se perdre"), her environment ("Journal du dehors", "La Vie extérieure"), her abortion ("L'Événement"), her mother's Alzheimer's disease ("Je ne suis pas sortie de ma nuit"), her mother's death ("Une femme") and her breast cancer ("L'Usage de la photo", in collaboration with Marc Marie), creating an "auto-socio-biographical" literary work.
Aurélien Dumont
Composer
Aurélien Dumont holds a university diploma in art therapy from the Faculty of Medicine in Tours, as well as a master's degree in aesthetics and art practice from the University of Lille. Following this, he studied composition at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris in Gérard Pesson's class, where he won1st prize in composition and the 2012 Prix Salabert, and took part in Ircam's Cursus de Composition et d'Informatique Musicale (2010-13). During his PhD in composition at the École Normale Supérieure, he focused on transdisciplinarity and the emergence of new artistic and musical forms. He was a resident at the Villa Médicis in 2017-2018. Aurélien Dumont's works have been performed by ensembles such as Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Linéa, Quatuor Diotima, Quatuor Prometeo, Kammer Neue Musik Berlin, Ensemble Muromachi and others. His musical theater show "Grands défilés" premiered at the Opéra de Lille in 2011. At the Maison Maria Casarès, where he is in residence for the 2019-2021 seasons, he will create a helmeted operatic diptych "Qui a peur du loup? / Macbeth" in July 2019, directed by Matthieu Roy.
Aurélien Dumont's music is conceived as a cartography made up of small landscapes where surprising musical objects rub shoulders. Japanese culture, contemporary poetry (a long-standing collaboration with Dominique Quélen) and a particular reflection on musical scenography are at the heart of his preoccupations.
Daniel Jeanneteau
Director
Daniel Jeanneteau studied at the Arts Décoratifs de Strasbourg and the École du TNS. In 1989, he met director Claude Régy, for whom he designed sets for some fifteen years. He has also worked with numerous directors and choreographers (Catherine Diverrès, Jean-Claude Gallotta, Alain Olliviere, Jean-Baptiste Sastre, Trisha Brown, Jean-François Sivadier, Pascal Rambert...). Since 2001, in parallel with his work as a set designer, he has created his own shows in France and Japan, often in collaboration with Marie-Christine Soma (Racine, Strindberg, Bulgakov, Sarah Kane, Martin Crimp, Daniel Keene, Anja Hilling, Maurice Maeterlinck, Tennessee Williams, Homère, Annie Ernaux...). In 2006, he directed "Into the little hill", George Benjamin and Martin Crimp's first opera, at the Opéra Bastille. At Lille Opera, he will stage Alexander von Zemlinsky's "Le Nain" in 2017, and Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande" in 2021. He was director of the Studio-Théâtre de Vitry from 2008 to 2016, then director of the T2G - Théâtre de Gennevilliers since January 2017.
Augustin Muller
Computer music director
Specializing in computer music and sound diffusion, Augustin Muller works with various artists and ensembles (Le Balcon, Ensemble intercontemporain, L'Instant Donné, Links, International Contemporary Ensemble...) for concerts and festivals. Coming from a generation directly confronted with the question of interpreting mixed repertoire, he has been working at Ircam since 2010 on concert, research and creation projects with numerous composers (Levinas, Platz, Carreño, Fourès, Eldar), musicians and performers, and is involved in several sound diffusion and live electronics projects, notably with the Le Balcon orchestra.
- www.lebalcon.com/le-balcon/augustin-muller/
Friche la Belle de Mai (the Module)
41 Jobin Street13003
Marseille
RATES
Full: 8€
Reduced: 6€ *
* Young people aged 12 - 25, students, jobseekers, recipients of minimum social benefits, intermittent workers, seniors aged 65 and over - on presentation of proof.
Pass Musiques-Fictions * : 10€
* (giving access to two sessions on the same day: Music-Fiction 11 + Music-Fiction 12)
DURATION
50 min.
Annie Ernaux
text
Aurélien Dumont
music
Daniel Jeanneteau
adaptation and direction
Augustin Muller
computer music production Ircam
Sylvain Cadars
sound engineering
with the voice of
Annie Ernaux
recorded music
Ensemble l'Instant Donné
Nicolas Carpentier
cello
Maxime Echardour
percussion
Mayu Sato-Brémaud
flute