Philippe Laurent

Olivier Greif was an outstanding composer and pianist who died before his time. His complex, charismatic personality made an impression on every artist who encountered him. A keen duty of remembrance has animated them ever since, now relayed by a young generation who have been captivated by his vibrant, tragic and yet radiant music. Olivier Greif was born in Paris on the 3 rd of January, 1950, to Jewish, Polish émigré parents. (His father, a pianist, and survivor of Auschwitz, became a neuropsychiatrist.) Olivier entered the Paris Conservatoire at the age of ten. At the age of seventeen, he obtained his first prize for composition in Tony Aubin’s class, then going on to hone his skills in New York with Luciano Berio. From the age of eleven until he was thirty-one, he composed highly individualistic works (including Chants de l’Âme in 1979), outside current trends.

Gil Evans & Laurent Cugny Big Band Lumiere - Golden Hair (1989) {EmArcy 838 773-2}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 317 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 139 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 11 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1989 EmArcy / PolyGram | 838 773-2
Jazz / Modern Big Band / Progressive Jazz / Post Bop / Contemporary Jazz

The second of two album to come out of the Nov 1987 sessions featuring the great Gil Evans with Laurent Cugny's Big Band Lumiere. The first album is RHYTHM-A-NING. Laurent Cugny was born in 1955, he is one of the best French jazz musician and known as a specialist of Gil Evans' music. Laurent wears two hats: he is, on one side, a musician and, on the other, a musicologist and a professor at the Paris-Sorbonne University. Self-taught musician, he started playing the piano when he was ten and played in amateur groups at the age of eighteen. He created several groups while he was studying economics and film studies. In 1979, he created the Big Band Lumiere and won the same year the third prize of piano at the National Jazz Competition in La Defense. In 1980, he also received prizes for its compositions and for the Big Band Lumiere.

The sweat of the rainforest, the hostility of the mangrove did not suit him in the end. So he left his natural environment for the tranquility of a freshwater lake. Without the constant need to battle to assert its territory, the Tiger found there the ideal place for its instrumental stories. To tell the story of those journeys that took him from Asia to Africa, from soul jazz salons to the concrete streets of hip hop, and transformed his stripes into music sheets where Thai ranges and ethio-jazz arrangements were registered.

Performance of anthology. Platée is Marc Minkowski's speciality, which had dug up it of a too long sleep in 1988 for a recording unsurpassed otherwise by this production of the Opera of Paris. Hilarious, but especially moving, Paul Agnew's Platée is a model of spiritual singing, it is necessary to see the dark Madness of Delunsch to believe it and invaluable Leguérinel's Momus.
Minkowski takes all his world of a spicy baguette and Pelly put the bases of his method: crazy ballets, moved reading, the score falls naturally in its ropes and he will renew such a happiness no as with his trilogy Offenbach.

It's possible to recreate everything about an eighteenth century opera except the audience,’ says director Robert Carsen in a documentary included with this DVD. ‘My work is for modern audiences.’ And how…In this brilliant production, Carsen goes to the heart of the drama…Michael Levine's stylised, bold designs allow the story to unfold with gripping clarity and, remarkably, some of the spectacular set-pieces (especially the storm in Act III) work even better on DVD than in the theatre itself. Barbara Bonney is vocally and dramatically stunning as Alphise…Conductor William Christie responds to Rameau's varied and colourful score with élan, and Édouard Lock's choreography – a version of classical ballet deconstructed and then pumped with amphetamines – is breathtaking.