PISTES
Person(s) in charge
Team
Partners
Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM)
Start date: 2025
Presentation of the project
Real-time mixed music, which combines acoustic instruments with sounds processed or synthesized in real time and broadcast over loudspeakers, uses electronic and computer resources that are subject to rapid obsolescence. This research project focuses on the challenges of sustaining and interpreting real-time mixed music works. It aims to document and transmit the technical and artistic knowledge essential to enable new generations of musicians to play these pieces. The project will start from a case study: Kaija Saariaho's work for cello and electronics Près (1992), with the dual aim of documenting and analyzing the different versions of the electronic part with a view to its preservation, and examining little-studied aspects of sound diffusion and mixing of electronics in concert situations.
Working closely with Anssi Karttunen, the cellist who dedicated the work, we will explore the subtleties of Près interpretation and the mixing process in a concert situation. In particular, we will reproduce and document the transmission of knowledge that occurs during a relay concert, where an expert Live Electronics Musician (LEM) passes on his know-how to a counterpart new to interpreting the work. This handover, which takes place under the real conditions of a concert hall rehearsal, will be filmed to enable in-depth analysis of the skills transfer process.
The project aims not only to preserve a major work in the contemporary repertoire, but also to provide a methodological model that can be applied to other mixed works. Combining performance studies and musical analysis, it will result in the creation of multimedia resources and a new version of the score with detailed annotations for electronic interpretation.
