Creating a sonic universe made of noticeable independence and mindful consistency – to the edge of spirituality – means offering to the audience a transient odyssey in a fully organised but unexpected utopia, so mysterious yet so obvious.
The aim of such a devoted gift (somewhat forgotten today) is to conceive a music neglecting the appalling market precepts, turning away from any kind of listening routine, from comfortable and referenced tastes – risking to baffle habits while inspiring new cravings. This whole project has been possible only because of a matured and thought-out concept, the exploration of a dream in a cosmos-groping sort of way, bred by the composer’s ingenuity, by his proclivity towards sharing and playing.
With the close contribution of inspired instrumentalists, these musical experiences seem to yield to the use of a formal performance, merging the audience into an infused, invisible spatiality but so palpable, physical and vivid.
Forever determined to draw upon a large range of variables, some classically identified (pitch, duration, timbre, intensity…) others ignored or neglected (allure, granularity, acceleration, mass, dispersion, porosity…) Denis Dufour has since the early 80's elbowed his own way through the musical field that disconcerted so called trends and modernity, breaking the expectations of the sound-sensations consumers we have unwillingly become.
Nurtured with an outstanding pedagogical experience with students from all parts of the world, he has enriched himself through their wonder, through their abilities he contributed to make them flourish, their visions he led to tangible realisations, with sensitivity and humour.
All this newborn realm has yet nothing improvised, it's more a garden than a jungle, with its own peat mosses, its full working micro-organisms, its articulated wild slopes, its hydrographic areas, and wetlands. It is sensitive, measured but slightly crazy; with clarity, style, frankness and daring that Rameau wouldn't have disowned, a balance daintily absurd and stirring.
Sonic forms rather than formulas, playing rules that free creation of any kind of dogma, an aesthetic and spiritual atmosphere that shivers and stirs us, and subtly transforms our perception of the world, closest to the secret part of each one’s childhood. | TB
See also: Documentation base on contemporary music - Ressources Ircam