Proxima Centauri
ensemble
For over 30 years, Proxima Centauri has been shaking up the codes of chamber music, notably by integrating electronics as a full-fledged member of the ensemble. Proxima Centauri collaborates with a wide range of artists, including other musicians, performers and improvisers, as well as dancers and visual artists. The ensemble's artistic approach is multi-disciplinary, combining musical creation and the visual arts.
Under the artistic direction of Marie-Bernadette Charrier, the ensemble pursues an active commissioning policy, creating numerous works by composers and investing in all aspects of creation, from research into contemporary violin making to the transmission of know-how to young performers.
Originally from Bordeaux, the ensemble has been associated with SCRIME since 2020, hosting a creative residency and organizing several events with the ensemble. Its influence extends beyond the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region and the borders of France. Internationally renowned, the ensemble is invited to numerous festivals and tours in Europe, America, Asia and Oceania.
Proxima Centauri is a member of Futurs Composés, REZO MUSA, Forces Vives and FEVIS.

Raphaèle Biston
composer
Born in Lyon, France, in 1975.
Raphaèle Biston's writing projects fall into three distinct fields: instrumental writing(Sable for two alto flutes, Lignes de fuite for five musicians, Ressac for thirteen instruments, etc.); mixed music(Présence for double bass and electroacoustic device, Parages for five musicians and device, Sillages for eight musicians and device, etc.); and stage projects, as part of collaborations with authors, actors, directors or adventurous instrumentalists (Schläfer, comédiens, directors, etc.).); and stage projects, in collaboration with authors, actors, directors or adventurous instrumentalists(Schläfer, for trumpet, actress and device, Fricassée de mari, with actress and improvising musicians, etc.).
She studied at the CRR in Lyon, the HEM in Geneva and the CNSMD in Lyon. She plays the flute as part of improvised music collectives.
Her music, though diverse, revolves around a few main concerns: elaborating timbre, highlighting its poetic potential, between noise and color, sound and silence. Start with the concrete, the instrumental gesture, to set the composition in motion. Write the gesture, write the playing attitude. Go back and forth between structuring and intuition. Use a wide variety of sounds, including the roughest and most fragile. Work on pitch scales to build untempered worlds that seem almost familiar, playing with the boundaries between familiar and strange territory. Bringing together the natural and the machine, the mechanical and the fluid, the sensitive and the insensitive. Proposing a rigorous, precise discourse, but also leaving room for the listener to wander.
In recent years, she has been commissioned by GRAME-CNCM-Lyon, CIRM-CNCM-Nice, GMEM-CNCM-Marseille (where she has been invited to take up a residency), Radio France, Théâtre de la Croix-Rousse, Fond Diaphonique and Fondation La Fenice; she has been awarded a grant from the Fondation Beaumarchais-SACD, and assistance in writing an original musical work from the French Ministry of Culture for three recent projects.
Her works have been performed at various contemporary music festivals and concerts, including the Biennale Musiques en Scène in Lyon, Musica in Strasbourg, Why Note in Dijon, MANCA in Nice, Les Musiques in Marseille, Forum in Moscow, Rondò in Milan, the Venice Biennale, Musiques démesurées in Clermont-Ferrand, SIMN in Bucharest, SMC in Lausanne, SOUND in Aberdeen, Musiqa in Houston, Présences in Paris, with performers including 2e2m, Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, l'Instant Donné, Ensemble Modern, Quatuor Béla, Charlotte Testu, Marco Blaauw, Multilatérale, Ear Unit, Le Concert Impromptu, Ex Novo, Divertimento Ensemble, Ensemble PTYX, Proxima Centauri, Utopik, etc.

Núria Giménez Comas
composer
Núria Giménez Comas studied piano, then mathematics, before turning to composition at Esmuc (Escola Superior de Musica de Catalunya, Barcelona) in 2006. She trained with Christophe Havel, who immediately introduced her to pure electroacoustics and the importance of working with timbre, whether in terms of timbral and harmonic expansion, timbre/harmony cohesion or the interaction between computer and instrumentalist. During this period, she also attended composition seminars with Helmut Lachenmann, Michaël Levinas and Klaus Huber.
From 2010 to 2012, she continued her studies at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève with Michael Jarrell, Luis Naón and Eric Daubresse. As part of her Master's thesis, she focuses on research into sound perception, and develops a reflection on the concepts of sound image and masking. Attracted by working with images and multidisciplinarity, in 2012 she took part in the ManiFeste Academy's In Vivo-Video workshop. From 2012 to 2014, she attended the Ircam Composition Course. In this framework, she carries out projects on synthesis using physical models and a project on sound scenes with the Ambisonics 3D spatialization system. In 2017 and 2018, she joined Ircam's artistic research residency program in collaboration with ZKM, this collaborative research project led with Marlon Schumacher explores and develops the notion of 3D spatial sculpture with work on texture synthesis.
She has participated in the Académie de Villecroze, the Académie Schloss Solitude, the Forum Tactus in Brussels, Voix Nouvelles (Royaumont).
Her pieces have been performed by the Quatuor Diotima, the Orchestre de Chambre de Genève, the Ensemble Contrechamps, clarinettist Harry Sparnaay, the Klangforum Wien trio and the Brussels Philharmonic, among others. In 2012, she founded the Ensemble Matka (Geneva).
She is currently working on a musical fiction, commissioned by Ircam, taken from Anja Hilling's Nostalgie 2175, with director Anne Montfort. At the same time, she is collaborating with the latter on a mini-opera project based on the text Shadow. Eurydice says by Elfriede Jelinek, commissioned by Barcelona's Grand Théâtre du Liceu.
© Ircam-Centre Pompidou, 2018

Christophe Havel
composer
After studying science and music in Paris and Bordeaux, Christophe Havel chose to settle in Bordeaux, where he plays an active role in musical life, in particular with the Proxima Centauri association, of which he is a founding member and co-artistic director, and with Scrime, which he took over as artistic director in September 2011. Since 1991, he has taught electroacoustic composition at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional.
In his first instrumental works - Oxyton (1991), Omotesis (1991), RamDam (1992), his highly expressive writing reflects the hallmarks of electroacoustic experience, both in his work on sound material - particularly in the detail of his morphological writing - and in his use of new technologies at different stages of the work's development. His work very often combines an instrumental device with a live electroacoustic device, as in S (1994), which was awarded the 1er prize at the 6th Braunschweig Electroacoustic Composition Competition in 1995.
Reacting to the highly expressive character of his early works, he turned his attention to the composition of dynamic structures in which harmonic and rhythmic materials play a predominant role and actively participate in the formal dynamics, giving the works of this period - IT! IT! (1998), ÆR [the dance] (1994), CINETIC (2000) - have a highly plastic character. More recently, his approach has focused on the use of a gestural grammar that enables him to apprehend the sound phenomenon in its entirety - Dissidences. Dissidences (2008), Eden (2009), XX (2010), XY (2010), whether in an instrumental or electronic situation.
In his metamorphosesseries, begun in 2000, he develops a style that brings together the instrumentalist and the computer in open structures using essentially synthetic sonorities. With this in mind, he initiated research at Scrime (Studio de Création et de Recherche en Informatique et en Musique Electroacoustique) into the capture of the percussionist's gesture. In 2004, he was appointed associate researcher at LaBRI (Laboratoire Bordelais de Recherche en Informatique). His career as a composer and electroacoustic musician goes hand in hand with a wide range of teaching experiences. From 1994 to 1998, he taught contemporary musical aesthetics at Cefedem, and from 1999 to 2004 he was a lecturer in musical acoustics at the Université de Musicologie de Bordeaux III. In 2003 he was appointed professor of composition at the Escuela Superior de Música de Catalunya in Barcelona (esmuc), and from 2004 to 2011 he joined the teaching staff of Musikene, the Escuela Superior de Música del País Vasco in San Sebastian, as professor of electroacoustic composition.

Pierre Jodlowski
composer
Pierre Jodlowski is developing his work in France and abroad in the field of contemporary music. His music, often densely layered, lies at the crossroads of acoustic and electric sound, and is characterized by its dramaturgical and political roots. He performs in most venues dedicated to contemporary music, as well as in parallel circuits: dance, theater, visual arts, electronic music. He is also founder and associate artistic director of studio éole and of the Novelum festival in Toulouse and the surrounding region (from 1998 to 2014).
His work today spans a wide range of fields, and, on the periphery of his musical universe, he works with images, interactive programming for installations and staging, and seeks above all to question the dynamic relationships of scenic spaces. Today, he advocates the practice of "active" music: in its physical dimension [gestures, energies, spaces] as well as its psychological dimension [evocation, memory, cinematographic dimension].
Alongside his compositional work, he also performs solo or in groups with other artists. He also collaborates closely with musicians such as Jean Geoffroy (percussion), Cédric Jullion (flute) and Wilhem Latchoumia (piano), on works and research into new lutheries.
His work on images has led him to develop collaborations with visual artists, in particular David Coste, with whom he has developed several projects.
He also works on the writing of scenic space in works at the crossroads of theater, installations, staged concerts and oratorio. Winner of several international competitions, he has been awarded the Prix Claude Arrieu (2002) and the Prix Hervé Dugardin (2012) by Sacem. - pierrejodlowski.fr