To Sylvie Goursaud

The human voice as sound source and performer on stage is present in most of my compositions over the past 20 years. Since 2009 I have been composing works, which use folksongs, lullabies, prayers and children songs from many cultures. All those voice recordings were reworked to adjust their pitches and tunings in order to create harmony. I combined them with specially written vocal phrases, percussion, as well as instrumental sounds into utopian musical works, where all those ethnicities perform and celebrate together, including: Ailleurs-intérieur (2009) is a 2-hour work which was first presented as a sound installation in the Gesú church in Montréal (Québec) and subsequently in venues in Erfurt and Cologne (Germany); and Together (2009) is a music piece for a dance performance for the Larissa Douglas Contemporary Dance (Boston, MA, USA). Issho ni takes those ideas a step further and proposes an intense sound ritual as a concert piece. It surrounds and submerges the listener, who becomes a witness and passive participant in a slow evolving illusory celebration. Elements from secular and religious sources are joining to memorialize unity and to rejoice.

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Issho ni was realized in 2014 at Harvard University Studio for Electroacoustic Composition (HUSEAC) (Cambridge, MA, USA) and premiered on May 21, 2014 in the International House of Japan in Tokyo (Japan).

Premiere

• May 21, 2014, Premiere of the 8-channel version: Concert, International House of Japan, Tokyo (Japan)
• May 3, 2015, Premiere of the 16-channel version: Sound Horizons: Portrait Concert —Hans Tutschku, Fenway Center — Northeastern University, Boston (Massachusetts, USA)