Order from the conservatory of Saint Michel sur Orge

Composer residency year 2015 (between 6' and 10')

Created on June 5, 2015 – Espace Carné – Saint-Michel-sur-Orge

Editions Francois Dhalmann

      This short vocal work was written specifically for a Conservatory Vocal Workshop (vocal chamber music). The specifications, determined by Professor Dominique Favat, were at her request a work mainly on language, pronunciation, breathing and few sounds to sing (so as not to spend too much time on intonation problems). Upstream, she communicated to me a certain number of vocal exercises that any singing teacher makes his students work on. These helped me to better understand the beginnings of learning to sing and what she was looking for in her students.

​

      moreover with singers of disparate levels, it was not necessary to multiply the difficulties. This is the reason why I used tongue twisters as texts, less for their meaning than for their difficulty of elocution and their sound color (although at certain times the meaning is formally important).

​

      The work is presented as a skit, where I play with the habits and psychology of the singers, alone or in Group. This additional dimension, a true Art of the Stage, particularly interested adults and gave rise to extremely rewarding work sessions: movement in space, flow rate while walking, positioning vis-à-vis the public, projection of the spoken voice, etc.

​

    to leave to the teacher - who is the conductor (although the work can be performed without) - the freedom to freely assign the musical material according to the level and skill of each singer.

​

        concert in its own right, which professionals can perform for the greatest interest of an informed public.

​

Note on concert production

​

    _cc781905-5cde-3194-bb3b-136 bad5cf58d_ The children in the room are very numerous and not very calm... My work opened the concert, because of the hubbub at the start. However, this one was planned: room still lit, the singers enter one by one on stage while doing their vocal exercises. The public does not know whether the work has begun or not. Little by little, the more the singers, the more the spectators realize that this is the case and begin to say “shhh” with the singers who pretend on their side to discover that an audience is watching them. The room calms down, the room lights go out, the stage projectors come on, the work really begins. The children in the room should calm down…

​

SPECIAL INDICATIONS

The conductor plays a cymbal (studded/sizzle preferably).

The time allotted to each section is noted at the top of these.

The phoneme and interjection reservoirs are proposals that singers can enrich at will.