horizons x Laura Vazquez

Program

Making music in an exploration.
An exploration of the sounds
of today’s urban technological and discontinuous environment.

Through an immersion in the acoustics of
the trombone quartet and the voice of a countertenor
horizons explores the fusion of timbres, the analogy with reality:

one voice or several voices,
a motorcycle racing or an opera,
the ice cracking in lasergun or
a requiem for the loss of a beloved one?

In several of my recent works since Plastic Boom, I have been using a video score system, where, as in the video game Guitar Hero, the rhythm is no longer controlled by traditional musical notation but by a cursor. When this cursor passes over a note, that note lights up and the musician must play it at precisely that moment.

The video score is then displayed on several screens connected to each other by VGA cable to ensure there is no latency between the screens and to allow for perfect synchronisation. In addition to contributing to a very special staging, these screens produce a surprising, precise result without the need for a conductor. Playful for the performer, this system allows for precision in playing rhythms that would otherwise have required very complex notation. Here, I have perfected and made the technique more flexible.

Meeting Laura Vazquez during my residency at the Villa Medici enabled me to complete the piece. The music for Horizons was almost entirely composed at that point, but there were no lyrics. I asked her if she would like to write some lyrics based on the title Horizons. There were two additional constraints: respecting the number of notes in the vocal part and sections, and a preference for repetition and monosyllables. A few weeks later, she gave me the text “les jours trouvent” (days find), which is now inseparable from the work. Everything fit perfectly, and we only had to make two or three adjustments.

Following its premiere broadcast on France Musique, we transformed it with s·a·m·pl·e into a unique format, combining other pieces and conducted transitions. When staged, the performance lasts between 30 and 45 minutes.

It was presented at the observatory of the Chiesa della Trinita dei Monti in Rome in 2023 and at the Librairie 7L in Paris in 2024. ■

dedicated to Olivia