School sessions are presentations of shows that accompany a preparation phase in the classroom.
They include a 20-minute on-stage meeting with the artistic team, to share impressions and provide a few keys to understanding the project.
Ondes is a concert-confidence about sound, electroacoustic music and "free" music.
Alone on stage, Thierry Balasse shares his experiments with sound, reminding us through acoustic, analog and digital sound manipulation that music is first and foremost the art of playing with sound.
Sounds produced by a variety of sources... A phonograph, analog synthesizers, resonant bowls, a bass guitar, percussion and perhaps a hen's ass to make chocolate mousse. A journey through a variety of timbres to take the time to listen.
All this on a small orchestra of loudspeakers.
"There' s never been a phonograph in our house. Nor at my grandparents'. I heard a phonograph very late in life. I remember the shock I got. When you think about it, this mechanically stored sound, it's like magic... A vibration in the air, transformed into a mechanical vibration, transformed into an oscillating engraving..."
This is how this concert-confidence on sound, on electroacoustic music, on free music starts.
Creation 2022
As part of the Longueur d'ondes Festival at Quartz - Scène national de Brest
Hosted residencies
Superforma - SMAC (le Mans) / EVE - scène Universitaire (le Mans) / Théâtre de l'écluse (le Mans) / La Fonderie - residency in Le Mans.
Thierry Balasse
Creator of musical shows
Composer of electroacoustic music
Performer on loudspeaker orchestra
Improvisor on analog synthesizers and percussion
His connection with sound began with listening to Gérard Philippe telling stories on his father's Révox C36 tape recorder, as well as to some feedback and unintentional echo effects on the same machine. After studying sound (on analog technologies between 1982 and 1984 at ENSATT) and learning to play drums and percussion on his own, Thierry Balasse first developed a sound and musical creation approach combining analog synthesis (Minimoog), acoustic percussion, sampling, real-time processing and work on multipoint sound diffusion, working on the creations of various theater directors. From this experience with the theater, he has retained a strong taste for the possible links between movement, words, text and music.
Today, he is a creator of sound and musical shows within the Inouïe company, which he founded in 1999. His shows include "La face cachée de la lune", "Concert pour le temps présent", "Cosmos 1969" and "Vers la résonance".
Since 2000, Thierry Balasse has also been working on improvisations combining instrumental or vocal music and electro-acoustic treatment with several musicians: Sylvain Kassap on clarinet, Éric Groleau on drums, Cécile Maisonhaute on keyboards. Thierry Balasse is founder and artistic director of Compagnie Inouïe, where he writes and creates his own shows.
With his atypical background, he defines his artistic approach as poetic: he conceives the desire to share with all audiences a creative music that is not based on stylistic classifications, but on the principles of shared listening and an invitation to discover music as an art of playing with sounds.
Thierry Balasse is associate artist at the Grand Ensemble de la Scène Nationale du Mans and associate composer at the Théâtre Durance scène conventionnée de Château Arnoux Saint-Auban.
Friche la Belle de Mai (Petit Plateau)
41 Jobin Street13003
Marseille
DURATION
1h
Thierry Balasse
sound director, composer, improviser and sound engineer
Jacky Jarry
creation and lighting
Amélie Polachowska or Julien Reboux
sound engineering
