"pascal Roge" Satie Gymnopedies

After a decade working as a jazz pianist in NYC, GRAMMY-nominated pianist and composer Pascal Le Boeuf took a leap of faith and enrolled in Princeton University’s PhD program to explore the boundaries of jazz improvisation and contemporary classical composition. Seven years later, “Ritual Being” is a compendium of his explorations featuring leading performers Linda May Han Oh, Justin Brown, Friction Quartet, Sara Caswell, Todd Reynolds, Jessica Meyer, Nick Photinos, Remy Le Boeuf, Ben Wendel, and others. The title track “Ritual Being” is about the effects of mankind’s behaviors on the planet and each other.

The second half of the 19th century was an erawhen musicians valued the evocation of the fantastic and the expression of passion above all else. They did not hesitate to manipulate and reshape musical frameworks through a wide variety of expressive techniques such as rubato (modifying rhythms and varying pulsation), portamento (expressively sliding between notes), arpeggiation, adding appoggiaturas and trills, and improvising musical transitions.

Pierre Sancan was a tremendously influential figure in French musical life, as a composer, pianist, teacher, and conductor, but remains relatively unknown outside France. Born in Mazamet, in 1916 – the same year as Dutilleux – he received his early musical training in Morocco and, later, Toulouse. He entered the Paris Conservatoire in 1934 where he studied with Jean Gallon, conducting with Charles Munch and Roger Désormière, piano with Yves Nat, and composition with Henri Busser.

Constellations, the 5th opus in the Solo series of the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, invites you to discover the viola repertoire from the 19th century to the present day. Conveyed with sensitivity and panache by violist Guillaume Leroy, joined by Victor Metral and Aurélien Pascal, this album brings together six previously unreleased works by some of today’s leading composers, set against pieces from the Romantic and modern repertoire. From Schumann to Connesson, not forgetting Lutoslawski, Pépin, Vieuxtemps and Tanguy, let yourself be guided through this galaxy of poetic and powerful works.

Constellations, the 5th opus in the Solo series of the Orchestre national d’Île-de-France, invites you to discover the viola repertoire from the 19th century to the present day. Conveyed with sensitivity and panache by violist Guillaume Leroy, joined by Victor Metral and Aurélien Pascal, this album brings together six previously unreleased works by some of today’s leading composers, set against pieces from the Romantic and modern repertoire. From Schumann to Connesson, not forgetting Lutoslawski, Pépin, Vieuxtemps and Tanguy, let yourself be guided through this galaxy of poetic and powerful works.

Conceived around a time of strong political, social and cultural turmoil in the UK and elsewhere, a time ridden with a deep sense of uncertainty and unease, the music resonates with feelings of alienation and powerlessness as well as convey ideas of anger and latent violence. Working with heavily textured drones as well as sharp edged sounds and sustained rhythms to echo and articulate those feelings, some of the tracks were re-worked until their final forms had lost all relation with their initial skeleton, something that was partly influenced by the idea of simulacra not representing the real anymore, inspired by the reading of ‘Simulacra and Simulation’ by Jean Baudrillard and ‘The Weird and the Eerie’ by Mark Fisher.

Is it a love story? Undoubtedly. Is it a play about the strange relationship between people and their computers? Likewise (after all, among other things, quite a few annoying spam emails are given musical honors in it). Is it experimental literature? Indeed, at least in part, because one of the actors from the Oulipo circle of authors around Raymond Queneau and Georges Perec is involved in it. Is it film music for an abstract film with letters instead of actors?

Guitare Classique described Pascal Valois’s playing as “the romantic guitar in all its splendour.” He is dedicated to reviving the enthusiasm for the guitar seen during the Romantic era. He performs music from the 19th century on period instruments using period-appropriate ornamentation, stylistic practices, and improvisation.

Between 1803 and 1968, the Grand Prix de Rome marked the zenith of composition studies at the Paris Conservatoire. In Maurice Ravel’s time the competition included an elimination round (a fugue and a choral piece) followed by a cantata in the form of an operatic scena. The entries were judged by a jury which generally favoured expertise and conformity more than originality and Ravel’s growing reputation as a member of the avant-garde was therefore hardly to his advantage, and may explain why he never won the coveted Premier Grand Prix, and the three-year stay at Rome’s Villa Medici that went with it.