S. D. · L’Est Républicain · 14 December 2000
Montbéliard teachers, joined by their Belfort colleagues, mark tonight’s festival opening with an original concert creation.
The Interférences festival and Nuits Savoureuses invite audiences to an exceptional concert today at 6 p.m. at the Atria centre. The opening show breaks new ground in several ways and fits perfectly into an event devoted to urban multimedia art.
It is an original creation by Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi, a recognised composer and computer-assisted-composition professor at Montbéliard’s national music school. Contacted by CICV, he created Syntax Error, a contemporary piece mixing electronics and computing with more conventional playing, largely performed by the school’s teachers and their Belfort colleagues.
Singing and acting
The thirty-five-minute Syntax Error uses texts by Jean-Pierre Balpe, a specialist in computer-rewritten poetry. Set to music, they foreground a strange character wavering between reality and delirium. The soloist is bass Nicholas Isherwood, who has recorded around thirty albums. A vocal virtuoso—the scores are far from straightforward—he also takes on a genuine acting role.
Another innovation, entirely in Interférences’ spirit, is electronics’ position. The mixing desk and sound engineer stand at the centre of the classical ensemble—piano, harp, oboe and others—and are perceived as an instrument without differentiation from acoustic ones. Screens will project texts offset against the sung words. Lighting should give the whole a choreographic dimension.
The result of close collaboration between composer and singer, Syntax Error should be followed by further shows, particularly a project planned for Florence. Meanwhile new-music lovers can hear the school’s composition classes on Sunday, also within Interférences, from 9.30 p.m. at Belfort’s Tour 41.
Syntax Error: today at 6 p.m., Atria centre, Belfort.
Caption: composer Jacopo Baboni-Schilingi and bass Nicholas Isherwood.