Pesson: Blanc mérité Ensemble Cairn & Gullaume Bourgogne

• Gérard Pesson (1958- ):
• 1Carmagnole13:03
• 2Musica ficta: Répéter la forêt (Hommage à Giuseppe Penone)00:43
• 3Musica Ficta: Nembutal (Une berceuse pour Jean Genet)01:52
• 4Musica Ficta: Une pensée pour la mer Égée00:45
• 5Ne pas oublier coq rouge dans jour craquelé (Moments Proust)10:27
• 6Musica Ficta: @vec Maria (Sur la scala enigmatica de Giuseppe Verdi)01:59
• 7Musica Ficta: Roméo est en miettes (Hommage à Charles-Valentin Alkan)00:48
• 8Musica Ficta: Origami Chopin01:47
• 9Six transformations du menuet K. 355 de Mozart: Original01:43
• 10Six transformations du menuet K. 355 de Mozart: Glissé01:20
• 11Six transformations du menuet K. 355 de Mozart: Hoquet01:54
• 12Six transformations du menuet K. 355 de Mozart: Sur quatre notes01:30
• 13Six transformations du menuet K. 355 de Mozart: Tyrolienne02:02
• 14Six transformations du menuet K. 355 de Mozart: À la manière d’Olivier Messiaen02:08
• 15Neige bagatelle02:49
• 16Blanc mérité (Avec Roman Opalka)20:15
• Total Runtime01:05:05

Info for Pesson: Blanc mérité

Lucid music. Vivacity, wit, intensity, foldings and unfoldings of the pointillist material, embracing the thing itself and its contradiction – sensuality, drollery, dances, abysses like sudden draughts of air. Movement and standstill.

Music that slaps, pinches, bites, muffles, growls.

Here Pesson reinvigorates what might (already) be his own classicism (Carmagnole); draws a pencil moustache on Mozart, who is more than willing to wear it (Transformations du Menuet K. 355); hounds his language so far into the corner that it seems different, and probably becomes so, in the intransigent light of Opalka (Blanc mérité); a language that ramifies and scintillates in Proust (Ne pas oublier coq rouge dans jour craquelé); grows geometric in Perec (Neige bagatelle); and denudes itself in ‘enfantines’ (Musica ficta).

The Ensemble Cairn, a faithful partner of the label, under its director Guillaume Bourgogne, leads us into territories that could hardly be droller.

Ensemble Cairn
Guillaume Bourgogne, conductor

Ensemble Cairn
A cairn is a small pile of stones found in the mountains. It serves as a signpost or path for those who venture there, and each passerby adds his or her stone to the pile. This was probably our own wish, too: to create the feeling, in our concerts, of a listening path, juxtapose different types of music, to allow audiences to hear the cohesion among the members of the Cairn ensemble, and to put together programs that are like objects themselves, like musical compositions.

Cairn Ensemble was founded in 1998. Jérôme Combier is its artistic director, and Guillaume Bourgogne its musical director. Cairn Ensemble's ambition is to create high-quality contemporary music concerts. Some of Cairn's concerts confront other art forms, such as the plastic arts, photography and video, as well as other types of music such as jazz, improvisation and traditional music. The Cairn Ensemble strives to be a group with conductor as well as a group that gives rigorous performances of chamber music.

Actually Cairn is based in Région-Centre Val de Loire and in residency at the National Theater of Orléans. It is supported by the Regional Department for Cultural Affairs (DRAC) and the Regional Council as a National and International Ensemble. From 2006 to 2009 Cairn was in residency at the Royaumont Abbey, Cairn has been the guest of famous festivals including Manifeste (IRCAM), Musica (Strasbourg), Archipel (Geneva), Festival d'Automne à Paris, Tage für Neue Musik (Zurich), Darmstadt Ferienkurse (Germany), Borealis (Norway), Ars Musica (Belgium) as well as the Villa Médicis (Italy).

Cairn has worked with many composers and given many world premieres. Gérard Pesson, Tristan Murail, Philippe Leroux, Thierry Blondeau, Raphaël Cendo, Jean-Luc Hervé, Francesco Filidei, Noriko Baba, Franck Bedrossian, Philippe Schœller, Marc Ducret, John Hollenbeck, Cristina Branco, Alban Richard, Pierre Nouvel are exemples of important relations for the Ensemble. Cairn has recorded works by Olivier Schneller (Wergo) and by Thierry Blondeau, Raphaël Cendo for the Æon label, and was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque de l’Académie Charles Cros for its recording of Jérôme Combier's cycle Vies silencieuses.

Guillaume Bourgogne
had learned to play the saxophone in Lyon, his native city, before entering the Paris Conservatoire. There, he won musical analysis, harmony and orchestration first prizes. He was also first prize winner at orchestra conducting with Janos Fürst as a teacher. Nowadays, he is the co-artistic director of the music ensemble Cairn (Paris) besides the composer Jérôme Combier, and music director of the Camerata Aberta (Sao Paulo). He is also the artistic director of the ensemble Op.Cit (Lyon). He has just been appointed Professor of Conducting at McGill University and Music Director of the McGill Contemporary Music Ensemble (Montreal). He is used to be invited by various orchestras such as the Gulbenkian Orchestra (Lisbon, Portugal), the Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra, the National Bordeaux-Aquitaine Orchestra, the Nice Philharmonic Orchestra, etc… In addition to conducting the 19th and 20th century symphonic repertoire, he is also regularly invited by contemporary music ensembles such as Court-Circuit, L’Itinéraire, Ensemble TIMF (Korea), Sond’Ar-te electric ensemble (Lisbon), Contrechamps (Genève), Linea (Strasbourg)… Together with these orchestras, they are used to play in France and abroad in the foremost festivals : Musica, Strasbourg ; Présences (Paris), Manifeste (Paris), Tage für neue Musik, Zürich ; Märzmusik, Berlin ; Radar, Mexico ; Campos do Jordao festival (Brazil) ; Festival d’art lyrique, Aix-en-Provence ; Tongyeong international music festival (Korea) ; Musica Viva, Lisbon ; Ars Musica (Belgium) ; Darmstadt Ferienkurse (Germany) ; Borealis (Norway) ; Archipel, Genève ; Fondation Royaumont, etc. Guillaume Bourgogne has premiered many pieces written by composers like Jérôme Combier, Tristan Murail, Raphaël Cendo, Thierry Blondeau, Sergio Kafejian etc. His discography is rewarded by various prizes : Diapason d’or, Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros and Disque d’or. Besides his conducting activities, he likes to give masterclasses. He teaches regularly in institutions such as Paris Conservatoire (CNSMDP), Sao Paulo State University (UNESP), Campos do Jordao Festival etc.

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