Œuvres orchestrales

Description

Born in 1965 and a graduate of the CNSM, Thierry Pécou is a young French composer of Latin American descent. His artistic approach is unique. It draws exclusively from cultures that are distant in space and time. The sources are multiple: Africa, Brazil, ancient China, Tibet, and Indigenous or Pre-Columbian traditions. The composer aims to be a mediator between these ancient or distant cultures and the modern world. His musical language arises from this particular resonance between oneself, nature, and the world: the "All world" according to the concept of Martinican poet Edouard Glissant. His works are celebrations, rituals, ceremonies, with a cathartic purpose. Thus, "Orquoy" is a "shamanic" piece, a ritual of initiation that addresses the "inner" eye of the listener. The bursts of woodwinds and brass, the martial demeanor, the continuous scansion, and the omnipresent percussion indeed evoke a certain extra-European music. The concerto "Chango" (God of fire and war) for flutes and orchestra is based on the authentic ritual of santeria. The piece develops through the accumulation and layering of timbres and rhythms until saturation, in order to express the anarchic agitation of collective trance. This long crescendo, which evokes both The Rite and Desert, is interspersed with moments of torpor where each participant seeks to catch their breath. Pécou opts for full sound atmospheres with empty formal structures. The "Marcha de la Humanitad" calls upon a set of traditional percussion instruments (gong, slit drum, rain stick, hand bell). The spectral ambiance that characterizes the piece, where timbres unfold in successive waves, introduces the march through a puzzle of interlocking rhythms leading to a final orchestral tutti. (Jérôme Angouillant)