Reminder
Jérôme Combier
Memento is a musical cycle conceived by Jérôme Combier that brings together natural elements (leaves, stones, wood, sand, water, grass) and simple materials (metals, glass, wool, coal), exploring their potential to become music or, at the very least, meaningful sound. The music is at once instrumental, performative, immersive, and electronic. It features seven musicians positioned around the audience, moving from one cluster to another. At the center of the setup, a percussionist-performer acts as a master of ceremonies: he manipulates flowers, strikes stones, and taps on metals and pieces of wood. From these materials and these gestures emerge sounds that, through a particular form of microphony, are then slightly transformed; sounds that are half concrete, half electronic first appear in the form of interludes and then gradually permeate the music itself.
The series draws on the visual worlds of Jannis Kounellis, Giuseppe Penone, Claudio Parmiggiani, and Richard Long—on art that seeks to measure a “gap ”: the gap separating nature and the artistic gesture, matter and its manufacture or transformation, the gap separating natural phenomena (fire, erosion) and human action (sculpting, digging, breaking, arranging), the gap separating nature from the places where art takes hold. In a way, what unites the practices of these artists (and many others) is the attempt—inevitably somewhat futile—to measure the meager span of human time against the scale of geological time.
MEMENTO is also a performative act, in the sense understood by the visual arts, embodied in the electronic score. A musician, a percussionist-performer, standing before a large wooden table—or simply a surface made of wooden planks—brings to life all sorts of materials arranged upon it according to a written score: fallen leaves, dried flowers, bamboo, stones, branches, metal plates, straw, raw metals…
MEMENTO invites you to enter a unique space: a system of raised platforms divides the concert hall into several smaller areas. At the four corners of the hall, large metal plates frame the audience, vaguely evoking Jannis Kounellis’s “lamiere”(sheets). In the center of this space, raw and simple materials are arranged on a table manipulated by the percussionist: flowers, sand, wood, stones, and a few resonant metals—metal bars and plates. The concert hall space thus becomes an evocation of another place, a denatured space. The audience will no longer be seated facing the stage, but will be scattered throughout the concert space itself.
Program
Fumo di pietra / tribute to Claudio Parmiggiani (2019)
for flute, clarinet, piano, and cello
Musica povera 1, 2, and 3 (2024)
For percussion
Le ombre delle cose (2020)
for accordion, piano, violin, and cello
(commissioned by the Henri Dutilleux Festival)
Luce e polvere (2024)
for flute, clarinet, and trumpet
Wood and Bones ( 2020)
for cello
(commissioned by Radio France)
Lamiere ( 2024)
For 4 thunder plates
Slate circle / Tribute to Richard Long (2024)
for solo percussion, flute, clarinet, trumpet, accordion, piano, violin, and cello + conductor
Waterlines / Tribute to Richard Long (2024)
for flute, clarinet, trumpet, accordion, piano, violin, and cello + conductor
Cast
Concept and music by Jérôme Combier
Lighting by Pauline Falourd
Music and sound production byEtienne Démoulin
Cairn Ensemble
Flute: Cédric Jullion
Clarinet: Ayumi Mori
Trumpet: André Feydy
Percussion: Corentin Marilier
Accordion: Fanny Vicens
Keyboard: Caroline Cren
Violin: Constance Ronzatti
Cello: Alexa Ciciretti
Directed by Guillaume Bourgogne
Henry Lemoine Music Publishing
Photographs © Pierre Gondard
Dates
September 30, 2023 – Musica Festival,
Strasbourg, Palais des fêtes
May 9, 2024 – Propagation Festival,
GMEM, La Friche Belle de Mai, Marseille
July 5, 2024 - Les Traversées Festival, Abbaye de Noirlac
October 7, 2024 – BCV Concert Hall,
Lausanne
