An instrument with a long history, the mouth organ embodies the harmony between heaven, earth and man. Its repertoire is divided between the traditional (linked to the Song dynasty and the Japanese imperial court - Gagaku, among others), the "classical" (pieces written after 1956 in China for renovated mouth organs) and the "contemporary" (created from the end of the seventies). With the help of empirical research between Wu Wei, Alexis Baskind, André Serre-Milan and Caty Olive, carried out during the residency at the GMEM in Marseille in 2022, Forêt de Bambous aims to broaden the repertoire of the sheng, to explore new possibilities of the instrument and to inspire future generations of composers and researchers.

Forêt de Bambous is the first creation project (2021-2022) within the framework of the Sheng! mouth organ project (2019-2023) which has been supported by the CNRS, the Collegium Musicæ, the IReMus, the Ircam and the LAM and brings together six teams of researchers on the themes of history, acoustics, organology, musical analysis and sound recording of the sheng (see the appendix for the list of research partnerships)

The Bamboo Forest creation project is divided into four periods:

1) Studies related to the sound recording and amplification of the 37-pipe mouth organ in a professional Berlin studio between June and December 2020

2) Residency 1 - Application of technical/esthetic results and methodologies to the GMEM in the form of a residency (May 25-31, 2021)

3) First experimental public presentation of both the device and a preliminary model of the musical creation, was given during the Holland Festival at the Eye Museum in Amsterdam on June 26, 2021

4) Residency 2 - Realization of two creations at the GMEM in the form of a residency and a concert (17-26 January 2022)

5) Public performance in the form of a creation concert organized by the Centre National de Création Musicale - Césaré as part of the FARaway festival at the Opéra de Reims (January 29, 2022)

The program will consist of two creations, an improvisation and 2-3 classical pieces for the 37-pipe mouth organ.