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Demierre Jacques

(04. 11. 1954)

Demierre Jacques
Demierre Jacques
3, rue de la Poterie
CH-1202 Genève (GE)
Suisse

Tel: +41 (0)22 329 48 38

 

Genre: Classical Music
Professional activity: Composers, Interpreters
Biography
* 04. 11. 1954.

Jacques Demierre is a pianist, composer and improviser. Whether acoustic or electro-acoustic, respectful of traditional music writing or embracing free improvisation, his experimentations feed into music as well as sound poetry and sound intervention in situ. They are all driven by the same constant search for consciousness of sound. Author of numerous pieces for ensemble or voice, he also explores the power of everyday noises. Extending the sound possibilities of the piano instrument, Jacques Demierre also interrogates the ways in which it can approach the sphere of language. He develops a very cross and interdisciplinary critical conception of music which gives him the opportunity to work with artists from very different backgrounds. Regular performances in the field of language art in duo with Vincent Barras and collaboration with Chris Mann, Caroline Bergvall, L'Encyclopédie de la parole, Christian Kesten. Interdisciplinary projects, with choreographer Cindy van Acker, Noemi Lapzeson. He has performed with improvising and experimental musicians, including Barre Philips, Urs Leimgruber, Thomas Lehn, Martial Solal, Radu Malfatti, Joëlle Léandre, Axel Dörner, Fritz Hauser, Andrea Parkins, Sainkho Namtchylak, Lou Mallozzi, Urs Blöchlinger, Irene Schweizer, Hans Koch, Isabelle Duthoit, John Butcher, Brandon Labelle, Jason Kahn, Charlotte Hug, Butch Morris, Roger Turner, Okkyung Lee, Peter Evans, Carlos Zingaro, Gunter Müller, Jaap Blonk, Barry Guy, Lucas Niggli, Sylvie Courvoisier, Hann Bennink, Rhodri Davis, Martin Schütz, Paul Lovens, Doro Schürch, Phil Minton, Elliott Sharp,...-

Jacques Demierre received the Music Prize of the City of Geneva in 2007. His scores are available on SME/EMS. His work is documented on Tzadik, héros-limite, Psi, Victo, jazzwerkstatt, Leo, Plainisphare, Creative Sources, INSUB., Intakt, Bocian Records, bardem, Unit Record, stv/ams.


Work list

O dunes (1978)

Instrumentation: for clarinet and seven soloists

Texts: R. Laing

Text: R. Laing.

Duration: 10' 00"
Manuscript
Iles (1979)

Instrumentation: for between two and four instruments

Duration: 20' 00"
Manuscript
Sept obscures variations (1982)

Instrumentation: for piano and band

Duration: 11' 00"
Manuscript
Recyclage (1982)

Instrumentation: for band, sounds, gestures and lights

In collaboration with Ch. Périat.

Duration: 40' 00"
Manuscript
Sans issue (1982-1983)

Instrumentation: for piano

Duration: 17' 00"
Manuscript
Tango (1983)

Instrumentation: for piano

Duration: 4' 00"
Manuscript
Bruissements (1983)

Instrumentation: for band

Duration: 8' 00"
Manuscript
Traits (1984)

Instrumentation: for big-band

Duration: 18' 00"
Manuscript
Vos (1984)

Instrumentation: for piano

Duration: 4' 00"
Manuscript
Ce ne sont que des on-dit (1984)

Instrumentation: for nine instruments

Duration: 10' 00"
Manuscript
Valgo (1984/1987)

Instrumentation: for jazz big band (version for pf, cl and vcl)

Duration: 4' 00"
Manuscript
Sweet baroque (1985)

Instrumentation: for 11 instruments

Part of the Baroque concert.

Duration: 15' 00"
Manuscript
The Case of Mr. V. (1985)

Instrumentation: for tuba solo

A plausible portrait of the tuba player in his solitude.

Duration: 7' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
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CHF: 15.00
Duke (Sophisticated Lecture) (1985)

Instrumentation: for piano, tuba and percussion

Duration: 45' 00"
Manuscript
Concierto barroco (1985)

Instrumentation: for voice, speaker and 3 jazz soloists and ensemble (retired)

Texts: Alejo Carpentier

Duration: 50' 00"
Manuscript
Journal (1986)

Instrumentation: for piano and voice

Duration: 30' 00"
Manuscript
Agripaume I (1986)

Instrumentation: for four-handed piano

Duration: 2' 00"
Manuscript
Je deviendrai Médée (1986)

Instrumentation: for solo voice

Texts: Euripides, Heiner Müller, Pier Paolo Pasolini

What is stronger than to see this woman, Medea, who progressively propagates and accomplishes her own myth?

Duration: 30' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 28.20
Agripaume II (1986)

Instrumentation: for piano

Duration: 2' 00"
Manuscript
Expinnocence (1986)

Instrumentation: for voice, two pianos and violoncello

Texts: William Blake

Written for an improviser/reader, these pieces attempt to recreate a fantasy world in honour of some of William Blake's poems.

Duration: 45' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
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info@musinfo.ch
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CHF: 48.00
Agripaume III (1986)

Instrumentation: for seven pianos

Duration: 10' 00"
Manuscript
Bleu (1986)

Instrumentation: for solo voices

Texts: Alltags- Werbe- Mediensprache

The performance of a singer who tries in vain to suppress her fit of giggles.Sponsored by the SME Lucerne.

Duration: 5' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
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CHF: 12.00
L'aube des temps (1986)

Instrumentation: for band

Duration: 6' 00"
Manuscript
Mercredi 7 / Jeudi 8 (1987)

Instrumentation: for two pianos

Duration: 6' 00"
Manuscript
Mercredi 14 / Jeudi 15 (1987)

Instrumentation: for two pianos

Duration: 3' 00"
Manuscript
Lussa (1987)

Instrumentation: for band

Duration: 20' 00"
Manuscript
Musique festive (1987)

Instrumentation: for four electronic organs and seven brass (two horns, two trumpets, two trombones and a tuba)

A topsy-turvy tuba concerto. Very much indebted to African music whose concept of rhythm and time is well suited here.

Duration: 25' 00"
Manuscript
Agripaume (hommage aux Banda-Linda) (1987)

Instrumentation: for voice and percussion

Collaborator: Vincent Barras.

Duration: 4' 00"
Manuscript
Consonnes (hommage à Arthur Rimbaud et Carlo Russi) (1987)

Instrumentation: for voice and keyboards

Collaboration: Vincent Barras.

Duration: 5' 00"
Manuscript
Commissions (hommage à Bernard Heidsiek) (1987)

Instrumentation: for voice and keyboards

Collaboration: Vincent Barras.

Duration: 8' 00"
Manuscript
y te doble las piernas (1988)

Instrumentation: for voice and amplification

Texts: R. Juaroz

Text: R. Juaroz.

Duration: 12' 00"
Manuscript
Outward (Homage to Eric Dolphy) (1988)

Instrumentation: for flute and clarinet

"Rhythm, is in fact, the only art or system in which the various energies can be ordered and sustained. The basis of a vital and psychological dynamic is rhythm." (G. Bachelard).

Duration: 15' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
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CHF: 25.80
Désir d'azur: musique de danse (1988)

Instrumentation: for eight voices and two pianos

Texts: Roberto Juarroz

The electric pianos remind one of toy pianos that grew too fast. The words are sonorous, the lists long and dense.

Duration: 42' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 57.30
Altus (1988)

Instrumentation: for organ

This piece is concerned with the moment. It is a contest in which the contestants are missing.

Duration: 8' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
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info@musinfo.ch
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CHF: 25.30
Terminus (take two) (1988)

Instrumentation: for flute and piano

This piece stages its own silence, even the fragile and dramatic silence that emerges only after the final tone has sounded.

Duration: 11' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
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CHF: 19.80
Simple course (1988)

Instrumentation: for six-handed piano

Hug & Co. Musikverlage
Limmatquai 28-30
CH-8001 Zürich
Avec le temps (1989)
Three etudes for improvisation

Instrumentation: for piano

Duration: 20' 00"
Manuscript
Dinner-Time Blues (1989)

Instrumentation: for voice, bass clarinet and percussion

Duration: 12' 00"
Manuscript
Theme for K. and R. (1989)

Instrumentation: for bass clarinet

Duration: 5' 00"
Manuscript
Sombra (1989)

Instrumentation: for flute, clarinet, vibraphone, piano, violin and violoncello

Duration: 12' 00"
Manuscript
Das Lachen der Schafe (Acte I: La morsure mélodique) (1990-1991)
Opera

Instrumentation: for orchestra, jazz trio, soloists and choir

Texts: Francesco Micieli

Text: Francesco Micieli.

Duration: 45' 00"
Manuscript
Une table pour trois, ou la troïka s'ennuie (1990)

Instrumentation: for three percussionists

This piece is based around numerous hand playing techniques (from the most common gestures to the orthodox playing techniques of the darbuka). It develops theatrically according to the gestures of each performer.
Sponsored by the SME Lucerne.


Duration: 20' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 28.20
(Parts: CHF 35.-)
L'archer, l'arc, la flèche et le blanc, ou l'Eloge de l'irritation (1990)

Instrumentation: for flute, clarinet, violin, viola, vioncello, two marimbas and imrovised piano

Dialectic between the pianist and ensemble involving the discovery of the unanticipated improvised moment within the notated musical gestures.

Duration: 12' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 43.30
(Parts: CHF 45.-)
Portrait de ça en cale sèche (1991)

Instrumentation: for speaker, three female voices, tuba, accordion, two pianos and choir

Texts: Jacques Roman

The content of the piece has a diffused feeling, a difficult to describe situation summed up excellently with a short sentence by B. Requichot: "je ne sais pas c'qui m'quoi."


SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 161.20
Quelques remarques (1991)

Instrumentation: for flute, clarinet, horn, trombone and four-handed piano

Duration: 13' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 37.80
(Parts: CHF 75.-)
Hérodote (1992)

Instrumentation: for solo voice

Duration: 35' 00"
Manuscript
Huis-clos (1992)

Instrumentation: for three percussionists

Duration: 35' 00"
Manuscript
Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny (1992)

Instrumentation: for big band

Composition in cooperation with Hans Koch

Manuscript
Air comprimé et autres airs (1992)

Instrumentation: for piano, painting and balloons (two performers)

Texts: Philippe Deléglise

With Philippe Deléglise.

Duration: 40' 00"
Manuscript
Air comprimé et autres airs (1992/2006)

Instrumentation: for piano, balloons and electronic apparatus

Re-adaptation of the original version.

Duration: 45' 00"
Manuscript
Divine surprise (1992)

Instrumentation: for a minimum of 4 instruments

Duration: 10' 00"-20' 00"
Manuscript
Nous ici (1993)

Instrumentation: for voice, flute, clarinet, violin, violoncello and piano

Texts: Jacques Roman

Three main 'characters'. A text by Jacques Roman based on African rhythm organisation and inspired by the solo fragments of jazz saxophonist Charlie Parker.

Duration: 13' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 51.00
Je m'émouvois (1993)

Instrumentation: for voice and seven accordions

Duration: 30' 00"
Manuscript
Chambre à part (1993)

Instrumentation: for sequencer (or nine pianos)

Duration: 4' 00"
Manuscript
Ton corps à sons (1993)

Instrumentation: for electronic tape

With Nancy Ypsilantis.

Duration: 60' 00"
Manuscript
W. J. (take one) (1994)

Instrumentation: for choir

Texts: Henri Calet

A tribute to Henri Calet in the form of numbers and letters. Eight voices.

Duration: 9' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 32.40
Desalpe (1994)

Instrumentation: for marimba solo

A meeting of truly ancient sounds, whose strength lies in its evocation through the delicacy of its figures. The piece reveals only slightly, the secrets hidden in the wood of the marimba.

Duration: 20' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 18.00
Le chant infini de Lise L'île (1994)

Instrumentation: for voice and manual harmonium

Texts: J. Probst

Text: J. Probst.

Duration: 30' 00"
Manuscript
Jaune Piano (1994)

Instrumentation: for two percussionists, one flutist 'electronic', one pianist, a comedian and twenty children

Duration: 65' 00"
Manuscript
La colonne brisée - Frida Kahlo (1996)

Instrumentation: for voice solo

Texts: Subcommandante Marcos, Frida Kahlo

A female voice appears alone on stage. It speaks of the journey from the personal to the universal, a journey brimming with sense and dramatic tension, a journey which connects the singularity of the body with the multitude of the myth in dependance of the humanity of a mysticised being - simply our world.

Duration: 58' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 46.80
Max and Moritz (1996)

Instrumentation: for speaker, flute, clarinet, violin, viola and violoncello

Texts: Wilhelm Busch

Musical version of the adventures of those two likeable rascals...

Duration: 20' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 40.20
ARCO (1996)

Instrumentation: for six-handed piano

Duration: 1' 00"
Manuscript
La machine à sons (1996)

Instrumentation: for four-handed piano

Duration: 5' 00"
Manuscript
Conférence (1996)

Instrumentation: for two male voices, one female voice, one indian harmonium and live electronics

Texts: Théodore Flournoy

"From India to the planet Mars" by Th. Flournoy.

Duration: 50' 00"
Manuscript
La tentation de l'Orient (1996)

Instrumentation: for recitiative, violin, flute and harmonium

Texts: Maurice Chappaz

Text: Maurice Chappaz.

Duration: 57' 00"
Manuscript
Danse numéro... (no 1) (1996)

Instrumentation: for alto saxophone, marimba and piano

Duration: 3' 00"
Manuscript
Les oreilles n'ont pas de paupières (1997)

Instrumentation: for two female voices, flute (bass and contrabass), percussion, paino with metronome, loud speakers

Texts: Yaëlle Torelle

Text: Yaëlle Torelle.

Duration: 17' 00"
Manuscript
W.J. (take three) (1997)

Instrumentation: for marimba and loud speakers

Duration: 10' 00"
Manuscript
Palo de lluvia (1997)
Sound installation

Instrumentation: for 320 loud speakers

Duration: var.
Manuscript
The languages came first. The country after. (1997)

Instrumentation: three spoken voices

Texts: John Ronald Raul Tolkien

Poetic route for three voices - and in the language of fairies which derives from the language of nature. Homage to John Ronald Raul Tolkien's love of language.


SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 63.60
De la tête au pied (1997)

Instrumentation: for double-bass

Duration: 9' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 25.20
Guillevic Avec (1997)

Instrumentation: for piano solo

Duration: 51' 00"
Manuscript
Pierre Eau Lune Air (1997)

Instrumentation: for singing, flute, clarinet, piano, violin, violoncello and percussion

Texts: José Flore Tappy

Text: José Flore Tappy.

Duration: 43' 00"
Manuscript
Retrato de A.P. (1997)

Instrumentation: for four guitars

Duration: 5' 00"
Manuscript
Le fil rouge de ton amour (1998)

Instrumentation: for spoken voice, live electronic and loud speakers

Texts: Sylviane Dupuis

Text: Sylviane Dupuis.

Manuscript
Au pied de la lettre (1998)

Instrumentation: for violin, violoncello and piano

Duration: 7' 00"
Manuscript
Géométrie du Hasard (1998)

Instrumentation: for 8 pianos

Duration: 53' 00"
Manuscript
Rollende Bälle (1999)

Instrumentation: for ensemble and loud speakers

Duration: 35' 00"
Manuscript
Danse des morts (1999)

Instrumentation: for string quartet

Duration: 4' 00"
Manuscript
lésions (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 amplified voices

Duration: 6' 00"
Manuscript
ma merd'de (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 amplified voices

Duration: 7' 00"
Manuscript
traghetto II (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 amplified voices

Duration: 4' 00"
Manuscript
umno ouwn (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 amplified voices

Duration: 5' 00"
Manuscript
Avec (2000)

Instrumentation: for piano solo (prepared)

Duration: 52' 00"
Manuscript
voyelles (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 amplified voices

Duration: 8' 00"
Manuscript
Hymne de Chêne-Bougeries (2000)

Instrumentation: for fanfare, choir and children's choir

Duration: 5' 00"
Manuscript
Exil ou les chemins de la différence (2000)
Music for dance

Instrumentation: for fixed sounds

Duration: 30' 00"
Manuscript
Blau (2000)

Instrumentation: for two pianos

Duration: 9' 00"
Manuscript
Bleu (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 pianos

Duration: 6' 00"
Manuscript
Gelb (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 pianos

Duration: 6' 00"
Manuscript
Jaune (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 pianos

Duration: 8' 00"
Manuscript
Die Ordnung der Farbe (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 pianos

Duration: 8' 00"
Manuscript
Rot (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 pianos

Duration: 12' 00"
Manuscript
Rouge (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 pianos

Duration: 7' 00"
Manuscript
découpe (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 amplified voices

Duration: 11' 00"
Manuscript
homard (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 amplified voices

Duration: 2' 00"
Manuscript
homère (2000)

Instrumentation: for 2 amplified voices

Duration: 4' 00"
Manuscript
Knicks (2001)

Instrumentation: for sound accompaniment/computer

Duration: 36' 00"
Manuscript
Black Tell: Troisième acte (third act) (2001)
Opera

Instrumentation: for voice, accordion, clarinet, violin, violoncello, trumpet, vibraphone and fixed sounds

Texts: Nicolas E. Ryhiner

"Black Tell": Collaboration with Fortunat Frölich, Sergio Menozzi, Daniel Weissberg, Charles Uzor.

Duration: 17' 00"
Manuscript
SOS (2001)
Phonetic actions

Instrumentation: for three speaking voices, contrabass flute, live electronics and movements

Duration: 60' 00"
Manuscript
Les entretiens de la Belle et de la Bête version 11.01 (2001)

Instrumentation: for 4-handed piano

Duration: 5' 00"
Manuscript
Sons de la plaine (2002)
Sound installation

Instrumentation: for loud speakers and data system

Duration: 15h 00"
Manuscript
gad gad vazo gadati voicing through Saussure (2002)

Instrumentation: for two speaking voices

Collaboration: Vincent Barras.

Duration: 30' 00"
Manuscript
Disparition (2002)

Instrumentation: for voice and piano

Duration: 22' 00"
Manuscript
D'ici là (2002)
Music for dance

Instrumentation: for fixed sounds

Duration: 30' 00"
Manuscript
Traces (2003)

Instrumentation: for string orchestra

Duration: 15' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 39.00
(Material: CHF 30.-)
17 (2003)

Instrumentation: for 4 instruments

Duration: 60' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 31.80
Point d'écoute (2003)
Sound installation

Manuscript
Sans titre (2003)

Instrumentation: Sound installation

Manuscript
Allo, j'écoute... (2004)

Instrumentation: for a group of twenty of children and fixed sounds

Duration: 40' 00"
Manuscript
AQUARIUM (2004)

Instrumentation: for 7 instruments

Graphic score.

Duration: 12' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
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CHF: 37.20
(Set of 3 scores)
Heterotopia (2005)
Radio play / environmental sound

Instrumentation: for 9 performers

Duration: 62' 00"
Manuscript
Travelling miles (2005)

Instrumentation: for 11 instruments

Graphic score.

Duration: 53' 00"
Manuscript
Particularité 12 (2005)

Instrumentation: for fixed sounds and electronic apparatus

Duration: 30' 00"
Manuscript
Angebotisch (2005)

Instrumentation: for ssx, tsx, piano and contrabass

Duration: 69' 00"
Manuscript
Danger dans la surface (2006)

Instrumentation: for eight spoken voices

Duration: 9' 00"
Manuscript
Instants Chavirés 1-4 (2006)

Instrumentation: for ssx, tsx, piano and contrabass

Manuscript
Puit (2006)

Instrumentation: for two speaking voices

Collaboration: Vincent Barras.

Duration: 40' 00"
Manuscript
Allerheiligen (2006)
Electroacoustic improvisation

Instrumentation: for bass clarinet, sax, piano, synthesizer, electronics

Duration: 52' 00"
Manuscript
Pasos (2007)

Instrumentation: for reed organ

Duration: 25' 00"
Manuscript
sumpatheia (2007)

Instrumentation: for violin and guitar

Duration: 15' 00"
Manuscript
Albeit (2008)

Instrumentation: for jazz trio (sx, pf, db)

Duration: 71' 00"
Manuscript
Machine Paradise (2008)

Instrumentation: for four violoncellos, four percussion instruments and fixed sounds

Duration: 45' 00"
Manuscript
Listening Donaueschingen (2009)

Instrumentation: foe 3 voices, clarinet, 2 sax, viola, piano, percussion, synth and electronics

Duration: 50' 00"
Manuscript
6ix at Taktlos (2011)

Instrumentation: for saxophone, piano, voice, percussion, violoncello and synthesizer

Duration: 60' 00"
Manuscript
6ix at Météo (2011)

Instrumentation: for voice, soprano sax, tenor sax, piano, percussion, synthesizer and violoncello

Duration: 50' 00"
Manuscript
6ix at Uncool (2011)

Instrumentation: for voice, soprano sax, tenor sax, piano, percussion, synthesizer and violoncello

Duration: 50' 00"
Manuscript
Flash-Songs d'après F. Nietzsche (2011)

Instrumentation: for voice and ensemble

Texts: Alexander Puschkin, Sandor Petöfi, Joseph von Eichendorff, Adalbert von Chamisso, Friedrich Nietzsche, Lou Andreas-Salome

Before becoming a philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche was an improvisor and composer. As an adolescent, he was said to have been improvising for hours on the piano and even in his later years, when his disease had already severely damaged his brain, he was still capable of playing the music of his time perfectly.
A selection of lieder, originally set for voice and piano, has been transposed in a version for voice (Dorothea Schürch) and ensemble (the musicians of the 6ix and the Fanfareduloup Orchestra).
Except for "Gebet an das Leben", written in 1882 and based on a text by Lou Andreas-Salomé, all his other lieder were early works written between 1862 and 1865, when Nietzsche was between 18 and 21 years old.
The switch to music was based on various axes of influence. First and foremost was Nietzsche's youthful energy, which is present in his lieder. Each acoustic moment is important and virtually autonomous: the sound of the sung text, the sound of the piano accompaniment or the commentary. The philosopher favours the instant perception in opposition to a bigger form, which would certainly be less adequate at bringing us into direct contact with the flow of time. In The Will to Power he writes: "We are not subtle enough to perceive the probably absolute flow of becoming; the permanent exists only thanks to our coarse organs which summarize things and reduce them to common levels, when in fact nothing exists in that form. The tree is at each instant a new thing; we assert form because we do not grasp the subtlety of an absolute moment."
To write a composition like Flash-Songs for simultaneously interpreting and improvising musicians, means to reconnect and amplify the movement of complementarity between performance and composition, so uniquely present in young Nietzsche's lieder. The score of Flash-Songs is thus organised around a time line, which initially is not entirely fixed, but allows the performers to play according to their skills of improvisation within given sound fields thus evoking a tonal momentum just like the young improvisor and composer Nietzsche with regard to his future Lieder.
The poems were selected to penetrate the harmonic and rhythmic framework of the Nietschean composition in order to activate a contemporary interpretation focusing on a acoustic reverberation of the phonemes throughout the instrumental ensemble. Like an attempt to express in a diffusive and equivocal manner the phonetic structure of speech.
Another influence is the melodies themselves: since the moment they were written down, they progressivley stretched in time until reaching us. There was no transport from the past into the present. There was extension, propagation without reverberation and the sound continued to uncoil its extension until today. Flash-Songs is here to collect these melodic extensions, amongst which the phrases were stretched, the words were distended and the phonemes were deployed all around Nietzsche's sound. And finally there is the historic duo voice and piano, a musical form that here is simultaneously present and absent. As Flash-Song's central point of intersection, it becomes the link between the romantic gesture and anchorage in the present and the place to question this link, penetrated by textual extensions, by streaming piano quotations taken from the lieder recording by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and Aribert Reimann, by using vocal filters or once again by the constant reconsideration of the voice and piano.

Duration: 45' 00"
Manuscript
Montreuil (2012)

Instrumentation: for soprano sax, tenor sax, piano and double bass

Further Nearness - Northrope - Welchfingar - Mantrappe.

Duration: 67' 00"
Manuscript
BREAKING STONE (2012)

Instrumentation: Klavier und Stimme

Duration: 40' 00"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 13.20
NO ALARMING INTERSTICE (2015)

Instrumentation: für Trio und Orchester

Duration: 20' 20"

SME/EMS
Postfach 7851
CH-6000 Luzern 7
Schweiz
info@musinfo.ch
www.musinfo.ch
CHF: 18.70
Discography
almost even further (Leo Records Nr. LR 644, 2012)
Interpreters:
Demierre, Jacques
Leimgruber, Urs
Montreuil (jazzwerkstatt Nr. 125, 2012)
Interpreters:
Demierre, Jacques
Leimgruber, Urs
homard et autres pièces (stv/asm Nr. 8, 2000)
Interpreters:
Demierre, Jacques
With more works of: Jacques Demierre, Vincent Barras
Info: www.fonoteca.ch
Jacques Demierre (Grammont Porträt Nr. 38-2, 1991)
Interpreters:
Demierre, Jacques
Works:
Demierre, Jacques: Je deviendrai Médée (1986)
Demierre, Jacques: Bleu (1986)
Demierre, Jacques: Désir d'azur: musique de danse (1988)
Info: www.fonoteca.ch
Bibliography
vogel, Peter: Musikalisches Porträt einer überreichen Existenz. "La colonne brisée - Frida Kahlo" von Jacques Demierre, in: Luzern heute 12 (1997), S. 17


Last updated: 2020-10-06 16:48:10