Puits Couriot Parc-Musée de la Mine
Conservatoire de Saint-Etienne
Opus Centrum Ensemble
In an effort to support the creation and interpretation of mixed music, Musinfo organizes a residency for soloists who wish to transcend the sound boundaries of their instrument with the Sampo.
Intended for performers of any acoustic instrument, the Sampo allows oneto deepen their musical expression in any place and in complete autonomy. In addition to new compositions, Sampo gives access to the existing repertoire of mixed music, which contributes to enlarging the performers' personal repertoires.
The residency will end with a concert during the ASD Festival. This concert will combine both premieres and repertoire pieces. For the premieres, the performers will be working with the winner composers of the Composition contest for acoustic instrument and Sampo. The residency allows the composer and performer to perfect the performance of the piece together.
The performers are invited to choose themselves the repertory pieces they wish to play alongside the works of the winning composers. This approach makes the concert in their image
15-30 May 2020
Due to the current COVID-19 crisis, the festival will not take pplace in 2020. We hope to see you in 2021!
18 May 2021 at 20h
Self-production, self-publication: a mirage of bedridden literature ?
Jean-Michel Pinon
New computer tools are pushing some of us to realize the dream of total control over our creations and seem to make the traditional circuits of production and distribution almost obsolete. Through the experience of Aranea Editions, a micro-structure of publishing works and digital projects whose cradle is located in Bourges (Cher), we will try to see things more clearly. Artistic emancipation? Alienating freedom? Mirage?
Based on the model of literary publishing, which can easily be transposed to other disciplines such as music or photography, we are offering you a small audio-video podcast, necessarily "homemade", to open the debate.
=> Watch online (French)
1st June 2021 at 20h
The mirage of language impoverishment
Fabien Cothenet
The French language is our true national treasure: we love its accents, its rhythm, and the literary heritage it has generated. Yet voices are being raised in alarm. The language is in danger, threatened by the Anglo-Saxon invasions that once helped forge it, as well as by the impoverishment of its vocabulary and syntax due to the less than rigorous uses made of it by the younger generations. Is this the case? Is the language becoming poorer? Or is it a mirage? Is the cathedral of the French language on fire?
Fabien Cothenet is a translator and founder of the translation agency In Translatio. He is passionate about linguistics, evolution, usage and study of languages.
=> Watch online (French)
29 June 2021 POSTPONED TO 20 JULY
Augmented instruments - aural mirages
Alexander Mihalic
Musical instruments evolve constantly according to technological advances, new knowledge and demands from musicians.
The search for new sounds pushes to invent new instruments on one hand, and to modify already existing ones on the other. By adding internal or external elements, it is possible to increase the sound expressions of existing instruments.
While such elements were mechanical in the beginning, the 20th century has brought us electronic means to transform sound. In this case, we speak about augmented instruments. One extension like this is the Sampo.
A composer and PhD in musicology, Alexander Mihalic is the creator of the Sampo. Having a passion for the link between science and art, he is particularly interested in gestural interfaces and the sonification of data. Alexander Mihalic is currently focusing on the development of the Sampo and on the management of Musinfo association, where he serves as Chairman.
=> Watch online (French with English subtitles)
4 May 2021 at 20h
Transitions
Let's stop for the time of a concert to assist to the delicate encounter between a classical instrument and electronic sounds. Like the light that bends in a mirage, the familiar soundscape is progressively distorted, deviated, until reappearing in a different shape. Let these transient mixtures carry yourself into parallel universes.
With her violin, Noémie Saintandré takes us from one atmosphere to another through four contemporary works that she performs with the Sampo.
Program:
| João Pedro Oliveira | Magma | |||
| Anna Rubin | Stolen Gold | |||
| Umut Eldem | Bound | |||
| Alice Shields | Kyrielle |
=> Watch online
15 June 2021 at 20h
Passionate about world instruments, Nicolas Vincent invites us to a musical journey. His improvisations take us to far away countries through the traditional sounds of the Oriental world.
But the journey goes even further, to unheard sound universes, where we may discover new timbres to these traditional instruments thanks to their augmentation with the Sampo. Open your ears and join us in this sonic exploration in the green setting of the source of Adoue.
Itinerary:
| Morin khuur |
Mongolia | |
| Kamancheh | Iran | |
| Duduk |
Armenia | |
| Erhu | China | |
| Mohan veena |
India |
29 June 2021 at 20h
Metamorphoses
The loom transforms through its machinery and thanks to the expertise of the weaver, delicate threads into ribbons with sophisticated patterns. In the same way, the Sampo metamorphoses acoustic sound into music of complex and colorful texture.
Recorded in the historical setup of the Lacemaker's house museum in Saint-Jean-Bonnefonds, this concert is the result of a collaboration between solo performers Tiago Coimbra (Portugal) and Miho Hakamada (Japan), artists-in-residency in Saint-Etienne, and winner composers of the 2021 Sampo Composition Contest, Zuriñe F. Gerenabarrena (Spain) and Francesco Vitucci (Italy).
Performers:
Tiago Coimbra – oboe and Sampo
Miho Hakamada – saxophone and Sampo
Program:
| Zuriñe F. Gerenabarrena |
Izar * | oboe and Sampo | |||
| Pierre Jodlowski | Le dernier songe de Samuel Beckett | saxophone and Sampo | |||
| Dan Schwartz |
February Strike |
oboe and Sampo | |||
| Sam Shin | Arrows beyond | oboe and Sampo | |||
| Georgia Spiropoulos |
Saksti | saxophone and Sampo | |||
| Francesco Vitucci |
At the Origin of * |
saxophone and Sampo |
* World premiere
=> Watch online
Concert realized with the support from the i-Portunus mobility program.
Saint-Etienne – May 2020
"Appearances are a glimpse of the unseen" - Anaxagoras
As part of the Art & Science Days, Musinfo proposes to composers and artists from around the world to participate in a call for a sound or multimedia work.
We dedicate this 2020 edition of the call for works to mirages in their different dimensions.
Read more: Seventh call for work for composers and multimedia artists
Contest / Residency Results
The international jury selected two winners of Sampo Contest / Residency:
 |
 |
| Umut Eldem (Turkey / Belgium) |
Philippe Hattat (France) |
15 May 2019 - 16h
Next Level
Médiathèque de Tarentaize
Musician versus machine. A piece with a duration of exactly 1000 seconds. 1000 seconds of pure concentration, because the adversary is a computer that doesn't make mistakes...
Flutist Alicja Lizer-Molitorys has imagined a concentration game based on the piece Composition Arithmétique by Polish composer Artur Zagajewski.
It is a piece for piccolo flute and sound file that requires the performer to be very precise. The sounds of the piece recall those of 80's video games - a musical course full of adventures and plot twists.
Performed with the Sampo.
This event is organized in the framework of the Artex Katowice artistic exchange project, supported by the Institut français à Paris and the City of Saint-Etienne.
16 May 2019 - 20h
Déjà-vu
Cinémathèque de Saint-Etienne
False or repressed memory? Juxtaposition of perception and memory? A sign of previous life, an illusion, a temporal anomaly? The eternal return of the same? The feeling of déjà-vu intrigues both artists, philosophers and scientists.
As part of the Art & Science Days, Musinfo proposes to composers and artists from around the world to participate in a call for a sound or multimedia work.
This multimedia concert will present a selection of works from the 6th Call for works on the theme Déjà-vu.
It is the opportunity to enter singular sound and visual universes, to explore the various visions these artists have on the given theme.
| Kay Abaño (Philippines / Spain) and Maria Ponce (Mexico) |
|
Notes Across Time |
| Francesco Bossi (Italy) | Bâtons intérieurs minimaux | |
| Omar Del Real (USA) | Palindrom (Entropy means nothing to me) | |
| Cristian Fierbinteanu (Romania) | Adore | |
| Konrad Handschuh (Poland) | Discobolus | |
| Panayotis Kokoras (USA) | Mnemonic Generator | |
| Richard Pressley (USA) | “…ailes sans plume” | |
| Ruud Roelofsen (USA) | On intimacy II | |
| Dimitrios Savva (Cyprus) | Stous Theous | |
| Berndt Schumann (Germany) | Planquadrat II |
17 mai 2019 - 18h
Impressions
Bourse du Travail de Saint-Etienne
The acoustic sounds of the cello and of the flute mix with electronic sounds from Sampo in a delicate relation where they influence each other, depend on each other, complete each other to the extent of giving the impression that all sound arises from a single source.
The works evoke different worlds and eras, from traditional instruments to almost machine-like sounds.
End of residency concert for soloists Marie Ythier and Alicja Lizer-Molitorys and for the winner composers of the Composition contest for acoustic instrument and Sampo, Jean-François Charles and Hongshuo Fan. The composers will present their works personnally during the concert, and a moment of exchange will be reserved to meet the artists.
Sampo is an innovative instrument manufactured in Saint-Etienne, whose purpose is to augment the sounds of any acoustic instrument and therefore free musical creativity.
This event is organized in the framework of the Artex Katowice artistic exchange project, supported by Institut français à Paris and the City of Saint-Etienne.
Programme:
|
* World premiere |
Crossroads * Masse pétrie * Flowing Form * Geometry of the Paradox * Haziak * Arguro
|
cello and Sampo cello and Sampo flute and Sampo flute and Sampo cello and Sampo flute and Sampo
|
Performers:
Opus Centrum Ensemble: Alicja Lizer-Molitorys – flute and Sampo, Marie Ythier – cello and Sampo
18 May 2019 - 18h
A Night Journey
Musée de la Mine
On the occasion of the European Museum Night, Nicolas Vincent will play different instruments of popular traditions, transformed with Sampo. His performance will take you for a journey to other worlds.
Combining musical moments and presentations, Nicolas Vincent and Alexander Mihalic, creator of Sampo, make you discover the instruments used during this special night in the historic environment of the Mining Museum.
15 - 18 May 2019
New perspective
False or repressed memory? Juxtaposition of perception and memory? A sign of previous life, an illusion, a temporal anomaly? The eternal return of the same? The feeling of déjà-vu intrigues both artists, philosophers and scientists.
The 2019 edition of the Art & Science Days will be held for the first time in Saint-Etienne. While offering new encounters and discoveries, this 6th edition will include some reminders from previous editions – all this in a new context.
We dedicate this 2019 edition of the Art & Science Days to déjà-vu in its different dimensions.
Saint-Etienne – May 2019
False or repressed memory? Juxtaposition of perception and memory? A sign of previous life, an illusion, a temporal anomaly? The eternal return of the same? The feeling of déjà-vu intrigues both artists, philosophers and scientists.
As part of the Art & Science Days, Musinfo proposes to composers and artists from around the world to participate in a call for a sound or multimedia work.
We dedicate this 2019 edition of the call for works to the phenomenon of deja vu in its different dimensions.
Read more: Sixth call for work for composers and multimedia artists
Contest / Residency Results
The international jury selected two winners of Sampo Contest / Residency:
 |
 |
| Jean-François Charles (France / USA) |
Hongshuo Fan (China) |
