Opening up

Sun shining – not the weather, but in my head. The storm that has flooded my life two weeks ago is now showing its real outcome.

Jo has written to me to ask me to write the score for his next piece. Not Noism this time, but the Brazil City Ballet. They have commissioned him a 25 minute piece and he would like me to compose the music.

Of course I want to do that. We make a good team, so why not use this strength to our advantage. The premiered is scheduled for May 2008, but Jo might want to get some music to work on before the end of the year.

I still haven’t started doing anything yet for my second album. The ideas are maturing in my head but I haven’t felt it is the right moment to give a physical shape.

On the other hand, I have promised Maria-Cristina to pen the music for her video installation Méditation érotiques, the divine origin of eroticism. What she’s done lies between a Butoh performance, a Renaissance painting and contemporary dance. It shouldn’t be too difficult. As we talked together, the music just imposed itself in mind. I will have record a harpsichord part, ask Isabelle to sing a few lines of baroque opera and create a soundtrack that will be more an evocation of music than actual music.

The installation will be presented in an Italian museum this autumn.

My work with Andersen goes very well. I took him Nicole Fallien for a singing lesson. I already admired her from what Julia and Isabelle had told me, and I liked her even more when I talked to her on the phone to settle the appointment. Everything seemed so natural when we met. A warm, open-hearted lady, whose approach to singing is like water flowing.

We left her place in a state of elation and high spirit.

The sweet power of music!

"Whenever you come back to France, I will make room for you!" she told Andersen. She obviously liked his voice. A very good sign. "But work on your pitch, young man!!!" 

She also explained to him that it was important that he picked roles that fitted his physique. "No one will pick you to be Don Giovanni or any romantic lead in a Verdi or Puccini opera. So you have to be smart and work on what you have to your fullest advantage."

Andersen was very happy. The prospects were exciting for him.

[…]

Louis Dupont sent me a very positive review of Les Garçons de la Plage a DVD compilation of four short films he has done the past years. The review appeared in Bref magazine, which is totally devoted to the short films. I subscribed to it for many years and went to the monthly festivals they would organize at the Trianon, a theatre located in the Montmartre area, near my former flat. I saw so many great shorts there.

This particular review had a line about the music I did for one of the four short films, also entitled Les Garçons de la Plage. Louis had previously used a Mozart piano sonata and the film was shown at many festivals in this version. But when I saw it, I suggested a more contemplative music would be better than the running phrases of the piano. I was then working on ‘Sur le Fil’ for Gang Peng and had done many piano takes. I didn’t have to think any further and the result immediately pleased Louis.

Even of my contribution to this work is rather minimal, I felt happy when the journalist acknowledged it.

"La fluidité poétique du film est due, pour beaucoup, aux arpèges envoûtants du pianiste An Ton That… (The poetic fluidity of the film owes a lot to the mesmerising arpeggios of pianist An Ton That)"

Send me more flowers !!! He he!