Posts in ALFA#
ALFA#6_ There Was Something Delicious In The Absurdity

watch video ➤ • 2'18" ~ for Accordion, Trombones, Harp & String Orchestra

This piece was created with visual artist Joel Daniel Phillips and presented at Hashimoto Contemporary art gallery in San Francisco in December 2018. For “There Was Something Delicious In The Absurdity”, he made these 21 fantastic drawings creating a loop of 26 seconds that repeats 5 times before the music starts over.

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ALFA#5_ Inheritance

watch video ➤ • 2'24" ~ for Flutes, Clarinets, Violin, Violoncello, Accordion & Electronics

Along with the release of the soundtrack of Laura Davis and Jessica Kaye's feature film INHERITANCE, here is a visually stunning excerpt whose music includes flutes, clarinets, violin, violoncello, accordion and electronics. The soundtrack is built around three basic musical elements, roughly associated with the three main characters and their relationships with one another: long daunting textures, chaotic sparkles, and non-pitched percussion. Only the lowest notes of the accordion are used here to provide a grainy quality to the texure.

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ALFA#4_ Remain

watch video ➤ • 4'12" ~ for Rhodes, Organ, Wurlitzer, Accordion, Percussion & Electronics

Together with dancer & choreographer Kelsey Oluk (Can) and filmmaker Carolina Cortella (Arg), we decided to collaborate on a multimedia project that examines the things we hold on to, and the freedom that refusing to hold on can bring.

"A young woman is held down by the weight of her history. […] She finds the burdens have manifested into an urn, filled with ashes. She continues to carry the ashes with her, […] It is her desire for true freedom and wild abandon that gives her the courage to shed the weight. She takes the ashes in her hands and throws them to the wind, […]. She is free now."

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ALFA#3_ IOWA

watch video ➤ • 2'25" ~ for Accordion solo & Electronics

I recorded this piece in Brooklyn in 2014 after a residency in New Mexico. I let it sleep for a while until I found the perfect visual counterpoint for it: ice seen from below a horizontal glass window to which color effects have been applied.

A piece for accordion solo with the help of subtle computer effects was a challenge I attempted a few times before feeling truly satisfied, I wanted it to be simple enough to make the listener understand every bit of the audio, yet keep a rich and complex sound for pure satisfaction.

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ALFA#2_ Stork Story

watch video ➤ • 2'39" ~ for Accordion, Prepared Piano, Percussion & Electronics

This second video of the series is a beautiful neo-realistic short film by Francesco Mattuzzi (Milan, It), made in the unconventional 9:16 vertical format.

Francesco sets the film around a church in a little village near Milan, where a relationship between a man and a family of storks is evolving through sound. The keyboard, the bells of the church, and the clacking of the storks' beaks are the natural sounds around which the entire sound universe is built using percussion, prepared piano, accordion, and electronics.

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ALFA#1_ Ouverture

watch video • 2'26" ~ for Accordion, Piano, Harp, Percussion & Electronics

The first piece of the series has been written around the notes D, F, A - Ré, Fa, La in French -, Fa and La being an anagram of the project name ALFA. The scores were handed to 3 musicians in New York, Bordeaux and Brussels, who filmed themselves playing the piece. The resulting video is an edit of all best ideas received. Short and colorful, it serves as a perfect Ouverture for the suite.

From East to West - Percussions: Arthur Ros, recorded in Brussels — Harp: Louise Ollivier, recorded in Bordeaux — Piano: Michelle Kalisz, recorded in New York — Accordion: Rafaël Leloup, recorded in Los Angeles

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