Research and writing residency
At the end of 2023, beginning of 2024, the trio La Soustraction des fleurs will celebrate its 20th anniversary.
The age of reason, no doubt ...
The age of reason perhaps....
Founded by the violinist Jean-François Vrod, who comes from the oral music of the French Massif-Central, the trio has occupied a special place in the French musical landscape since its beginnings. If their roots are clearly identified, their approach is one of exploration, composition and improvisation; in short, one of creation. Thus, the trio sails without complex in very diverse contexts, from the festival of traditional music to the concert of contemporary music.
Several shows, concerts, recordings, collaborations with other artistic universes have seen the light of day making this trio a rich space of artistic exchanges.
Jean François Vrod is both steeped in his history as a collector-musician of the oral traditions of the French domain, and highly attentive to the challenges of contemporary art in all its expressions.
Frédéric Aurier, violinist and member of the prestigious Bela Quartet, is a complete instrumentalist who plays Ligeti and Bartok as well as the old Auvergne bourrées from his native country. Let us add that he is also a composer recognized today in the scholarly musical landscape.
As a worthy descendant of the lineage of French percussionists leading to the legendary percussion trio Le Cercle (Jean Pierre Drouet, Willy Coquillat, Gaston Sylvestre), Sylvain Lemêtre allows himself all kinds of musical adventures, from the contemporary audacities of the Cairn ensemble, to the guitarist Marc Ducret's ensemble, from his duets with Denis Chouillet (piano) or Benjamin Flament (percussion) to his own solos (Sonore Boréale), all in a delightful attention to the theatricality of the stage.
20 years after its beginnings, the trio decides to question its original intrumentarium (2 violins and 1 zarb). If over time the three musicians have not hesitated to adorn their instruments with various "preparations", have willingly spoken, sung while playing, have used podorythmy, all in order to obtain a timbral palette as rich as possible, they now wish to enrich this sound palette even more.
This is why they imagine for the present project :
An orchestra of men orchestra, " L'ODOHO ".
Many folk musicians in rural Europe, who generally played alone, developed strategies for sounding "big".
By adding voices, feet, bells, various noisemakers, double strings (folk fiddle traditions), tinkling (bagpipe traditions), drones on the instrument (hurdy-gurdies, bagpipes), left-handed basses (diatonic and chromatic accordions), foot basses (Belgian Namur accordion school), sympathetic strings (Norwegian Hardingfele)... All stratagems and sometimes even the most cobbled-together ones are good to enlarge the sound spectrum.
We then see the appearance of musicians who invent their own personal mini-orchestra to perform, often outside.
There is something of the street theater, of the harangue, of the camelot in this singular artistic gesture, which is not without displeasing the usually joyful mood of the trio.
In the jargon of French popular musicians, this ensemble of heterogeneous instruments played by a single person is called a "Jaze", an involuntary semantic condensation of "Jazz" (American) and the verb "to talk"!
For the present project, by zooming in on this story, the 3 musicians of the trio La Soustraction des Fleurs imagine for each of them possibilities of instrumental extensions:
Sets of feet, knees, crotches, preparations for the 2 violins, instrumental enlargement around the zarb, acoustic voice modifiers, in short a whole orchestral ensemble with which, in fine, they wish to deepen their compositional research.
And as an analogical echo to the play of the composite instrumental sets, various textual fragments borrowed from some great literary traditions (Theatre No, operas of the Western repertoire, Greek tragedy and comedy, world poetry...) will respond to the sound world of the 3 musicians.
This project will also be for the trio the occasion to meet again with pleasure an old companion of road in the person of Sam Mary to the lights and scenographic bricolages.
The creation is envisaged for the beginning of 2024 in Paris at the Lavoir moderne.
20 years ....
20 years already...
Coproduction
Le chantier de Correns, GMEM, Mucem, Cerc (Pau), Cité de la musique de Marseille
Jean-François Vrod
Violinist
A violinist with a background in traditional French music, he began playing the violin as a teenager while attending the Parisian Folk-Club Le Bourdon. He then undertook his first collections on the music of oral tradition in the mountains of the Massif Central (Cantal, Haute-Loire). Concerned in his work as much by the valorization of popular cultures as by a contemporary extension of the gesture of the traditional musician, his road is marked out by many projects of creation.
Thus, he collaborates or crosses on the occasion of various projects: Dominique Pifarely, Alain Savouret, Abbi Patrix, Fantazio, Denis Charolles and the Campagnie des musiques à ouïr, Frédéric Le Junter, Frédéric Aurier and Sylvain Lemêtre within the trio La Soustraction des Fleurs, the quartet Bela, the Gmea of Albi for two state orders, Jean Pierre Drouet, Jean Luc Faffchamps (Ensemble Ictus)...
His last two recordings with the trio La Soustraction des Fleurs are published by Radio France on the Signature label, the third on Umlaut records.
Sylvain Lemêtre
Percussionist
The itinerary of eclectic percussionist Sylvain Lemêtre is based on his openness and insatiable curiosity towards musical explorations and encounters. His favorite field is at the borders of contemporary creation, jazz, improvisation and traditional music. It is important to him to lead these different artistic domains which have always nourished him. The question of theatricality in music and the presence of musicians on stage are very important to him when he approaches musical theater. Thus, today he invests himself with fervor in formations with varied aesthetics: La soustraction des Fleurs, with Jean-François Vrod and L'Ensemble Cairn, directed by Jérôme Combier, Saltarello - Garth Knox, Adieu mes très belles- Matthieu Donarier. Sonore Boréale, his solo around texts by Olivier Mellano. He played in Spring Roll and Printemps - Sylvaine Hélary, Surnatural Orchestra, Léger Sourire duo of musical theater, Magnetic Ensemble by Antonin Leymarie, Real Thing #3 and Tower-Bridge - Marc Ducret, Le Sacre du Tympan Fred Pallem, La vapeur au-dessus du riz by Alexandra Grimal. More recently he started writing and fulfilled commissions, including : Borg et Théa state order for the quartet Béla, La Soustraction des Fleurs and the mastery of the Opera of Lyon, but also La tête à l'envers, Entre chou et loup and L'ange du bizarre for the duo Myssil, or L'énergie du plafond for Surnatural Orchestra Albert Marcoeur and the quartet Béla: T.Bonvalet, K.Davis, E.Caron, J.Pontier, D.Chouillet, C.Palotaï, P.Minton, Nosfell, Matthieu A, JP.Drouet, F.Sarhan, T.Blondeau, G.Pesson, R.Cendo, F.Marillier, N.Frize, A.Messager, R.Thierry, B.Coupey, C.Pavet, F.Cotinaud, P.Cueco, V.Bouchot. MH. Fournier, G.Siracusa, Y.Maresz, L.Naon, L.Fagin, A.Serre-Milan, F.Pallem.
Frédéric Aurier
Violinist
Frédéric Aurier was born in 1976 in Auvergne. At a very young age, he began playing the violin at the Conservatoire de Clermont-Ferrand. Very quickly, the instrument attracted him to all the "other" music and it was at the age of fourteen that his decisive meeting with Jean-François Vrod pushed him to explore both traditions, learned and popular... Since their meeting, Frédéric Aurier has not stopped playing in duet with Jean-François Vrod, until the creation of the trio La Soustraction des Fleurs with the percussionist Sylvain Lemêtre, and the recording of three CDs.
After obtaining his first prize with unanimity and with the congratulations of the jury at the CNSM of LYON, he founded the Béla Quartet, which for 13 years has been defending the modern and contemporary repertoire throughout the world, by commissioning works from numerous composers, and crossing swords with artists from all horizons, such as the improviser Fantazio, the choreographer Josette Baïz, the Malian griot Moriba Koïta, the Palestinian duo Sabîl...and La Soustraction des Fleurs! Their wide discography testifies to their eclecticism, between Ligeti's quartets and the universe of the singer Albert Marcoeur...
As a composer, he regularly produces new works, some of them benefiting from the Commande d'Etat, such as Le Mur d'Hadrien, for women's voices, large chorus and quartet, or Mabinogion, a melodrama for female singer and quartet. He has also had the opportunity to write for various projects, such as Entre Chou et Loup by the Myssil duo, Incertain Monsieur Tokbar by the Compagnie Turak or the children's opera Borg et Théa with the Béla Quartet and La Soustraction des Fleurs.
Samuel Mary
Lighting designer
Samuel Mary has been working for more than twenty years for theater, dance, and creative music... from Abbi Patrix to Herman Diephuis or Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui via Joachim Kühn, the singer Philippe Katerine, or the Brussels collective Mâäk's Spirit. At the same time, he has developed a company and a residency in the Nantes region(La Ferrière artistic residency)
A long-time partner of Jean-François Vrod and the Soustraction des Fleurs, he has developed a spontaneous approach to concert lighting, and has explored the question of the theatricality of musicians at work.
Frédéric Aurier
surrounded violin, voice, objects
Sylvain Lemêtre
zarb surrounded, voice
Jean-François Vrod
surrounded violin, objects, voice, artistic direction
Samuel Mary
lights, scenography, construction
