Portrait d'ombres is a series of sound solos for four musicians engaged in a daring, risky practice of music, towards an infinity of sound.

These four solos could be considered independently, yet they are one and the same, like a single organism made up of four active cells. The succession of these four solos gives rise to a single solo that is gradually transformed, through different musical writing processes and intimate and collective imagination. Portrait d'ombres is both a solitary and shared journey through an object in the making.


Note of intent

Portrait d'ombres is a series of sound portraits for solo instruments. The particularity of this series lies in the fact that I compose part of the music and deliberately leave unwritten parts for the performer to fill in. It's up to the performer to fill in these missing parts of the score. I call these missing parts "The Shadows". I write until I find the shadow, just as you would find it at a bend in the road, almost by chance. It opens up other possibilities, other acoustic inventions. We can speak of crossings, juxtapositions, breaches or ruptures... And above all of echoes, of continuing the threads of what might have been... 

This mode of writing, also known as open writing, I've experimented with as a performer and composer, discovering John Cage as well as Stockhausen, Boucourechliev, Globokar, Boulez, Christian Wolf... With this concept of writing, the notion of formal non-relationship "outside the moment" (John Cage's brilliant and emblematic silent piece 4'33 comes to mind) raises profound questions for me. What is the link between two sound events if I remove the codes that pre-exist the linearity of musical discourse? It's in the instant of the encounter that the relationship is created, and this instant becomes overwhelming through its force of the unexpected, like the unveiling of a world... Yves Bonnefoy said that "language erases the world, it's a matter of poetry to find it again", Portrait d'ombres is situated in this place, in this poetics of music, in its fragmentation... 

This compositional device thus questions my intimate relationship with the "unknown" of my own musical writing. And to do this, I'm inventing a dialogue between the performer and myself, somewhat akin to Marcel Duchamp's idea of "the viewer" making the painting. Here, the interpreter is not only the intermediary, the medium, but also folds another fold into my own music. In this way, each portrait I compose becomes the performer's self-portrait. 

With this portrait/self-portrait mirror game, we're also approaching a musical theater, that musical theater I love so much, a theater of the invisible where the relationship is of the order of a resonance, a link, an encounter and the secret ford between composer and performer. 

The development of the instrumental writing is a game of transpositions. For each solo, I develop writing techniques in relation to each instrument. In this sense, the word "study" aptly defines the field of instrumental research and experimentation. Transposition occurs when I rewrite the solo for one of the three other instruments. One might compare this rewriting to translation in the literary field. How do you go from harp to clarinet, from piano to percussion... It's a soundscape that's both constant and constantly changing, where each instrument sheds a different light on the same place. The four solos are played in succession, with three interludes that allow me to glide from one solo to the next. These short interludes are written for the quartet, giving the full sound of the instrumental ensemble. 

The solo is both a whole, like a human cell, and a part of the whole formed by the four solos and the three interludes. This refers to the temporal listening of the whole, and to the experience of the listener, who transforms his or her listening as the piece unfolds and as he or she understands the variation in the musical material. 

This reminds me of Lawrence Durrell's literary work The Alexandria Quartet, which is undoubtedly the starting point for my desire to write this musical piece. In this set of four novels, Durrell presents different perspectives and approaches to the same events. Durrell's work has always fascinated me, as has variation in music, in the ceaseless transformation of the basic material and its plasticity. Its ability to open up other imaginary worlds... 

Four instruments, each forming an island of isolated instrumental machinery. Piano, harp, percussion, clarinet: from attack to resonance, from breath to melody... Like a game repeated four times over, like the image of an unfinished puzzle that never finds its solution. 

Mentions
Biography(s)
Location
Portrait of shadows
Jean-Christophe Feldhandler
Concert
Tue. January 16, 2024 | 7:00 pm Friche la Belle de Mai (Petit Plateau)

DURATION
1h

TARIFFS
Unique 6€
Modulations loyalty card 30€*
Limited number of seats
*Gives access to all Modulations in season 23-24

TICKETS
Online: gmem-cncm.mapado.com
By e-mail: billetterie@gmem.org
On site: on the day of the performance, half an hour before the show, subject to availability.

WITHIN THE MODULATIONS
What are the Modulations?
Concerts, performances, regular events...
In other words, a season organized by the GMEM.
2nd semester dates :
01/16 - 02/20 - 03/03 - 19/03 - 04/16 - 05/12

Distribution

Jean-Christophe Feldhandler
composition 

Fabrice Arnaud-Crémon
clarinet

HélèneBreschand
harp

LêQuan Ninh
percussion

Claudine Simon
piano

Useful links
Jean-Christophe Feldhandler Claudine Simon Hélène Breschand Lê Quan Ninh