Éliane Radigue

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Éliane Radigue (2014)

Éliane Radigue (born January 24, 1932 in Quartier des Halles , Paris ) is a contemporary French composer and a pioneer of electronic music . She was married to the French artist Arman , with whom she raised their three children in Nice until 1967, before moving back to Paris.

Musical development

Éliane Radigue's musical career began in the 1950s, the first publications appeared in the late 1960s. As a piano student, she already had first experience with composition before she met Pierre Schaeffer in the early 1950s. At first she studied sporadically, then from 1957-58 more intensively with Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry at the RTF Studio d'Essai in Paris, where she learned electroacoustic composition. At the beginning of the 1960s she was Pierre Schaeffer's assistant and at that time designed some of the sounds that were used in Schaeffer's work. From 1967 to 1968 she was Pierre Henry's assistant in the Apsome studio . Over time, she broke away from Schaeffer and Henry, who criticized their use of microphone feedback and tape loops .

In the early 1970s, she and Laurie Spiegel shared a studio at New York University with a Buchla synthesizer that Morton Subotnick had set up there. At that time she already felt closer to the New York minimalists than to the Musique concrète Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry. In the mid-1970s she converted (after the performance of Adnos I ) to Tibetan Buddhism and learned from the 10th Pawo Rinpoche , who repeatedly motivated her to do her actual work. After three years of intensive practice, she started with Adnos II , which was completed in 1979 ( Adnos III then in 1980).

Her series about the Patriarch Milarepa (since the early 1980s) was financed by composition grants from the French Ministry of Culture. From the beginning of the 1990s until 1998, Radigue worked on the three-hour trilogy de la Mort , which was created in memory of her son Yves Armand (1954-1989) and her teacher Pawlo Rinpoche Tsuglag Mawey Wangchuk (1912-1991). The first part was released on Phill Niblock's label XI Records .

Since the turn of the century, Radigue has mainly worked on compositions for interpreters of acoustic (or semi-acoustic) instruments. Her first work Elemental II was commissioned by the bass player Kasper T. Toeplitz and performed by him on the bass computer he developed himself . It was later performed by the laptop improvisation group The Lappetites , with which she initially participated. In 2006, Éliane Radigue received the Golden Nica in the Digital Musics category at the Ars Electronica Festival in Linz for her last electronic piece L'île re-sonante (2000). She then worked with the American cellist Charles Curtis Naldjorlak I , then with the basset horn players Carole Robinson and Bruno Martinez Naldjorlak II and finally in the ensemble Naldjorlak III ; the performance of the complete trilogy took place in 2009. In June 2011 the composition for solo harp Occam I , which was written for the harpist Rhodri Davies , was premiered.

music

Her musical creation can be described as slow and careful, on average, Éliane Radigue published one major work every three years. For her electronic compositions she works exclusively with an ARP 2500 modular system and tape machines . The ARP synthesizer became their trademark, with particular recognition for their "sensitive and speckled pure" sound surface design. Trilogie de la Mort can be heard to a large extent as a basic tone (or basic sound) processing of singular oscillations in extremely slow oscillation ranges, resonances are kept low throughout. The tonal qualities of the consistently de- or unfractured frequencies are in the foreground compared to the noisy frequency components. The texture created in this way is contrasted by an evenly repeated sequence of individual hits on a singing bowl . With consistent athematicism and affirmative derhythmization, her music moves closer to punctual music . For Vice Versa, etc. ... (2009), Éliane Radigue specifies the length as " ad libitum " - the pieces should be heard on two playback devices at the same time, if necessary.

Éliane Radigue currently lives in France, where she continues to both compose and practice Tibetan Buddhism. She regularly presents her compositions on visits to the United States.

Discography (selection)

  • Jouet Electronique / Elemental I, Alma Marghen, 2010
  • Vice Versa, etc., Important, 2009
  • Triptych, Important, 2009
  • Naldjorlak for Charles Curtis, Shiiin, 2008
  • Chry-ptus, Schoolmap, 2007
  • Jetsun Mila, Lovely Music, 2007 (re-released 1987)
  • L'île re-sonante, Shiin, 2005
  • Before the Libretto (with The Lappetites), Mercury, 2005
  • Elemental II, Records of Sleaze Art, 2004
  • Geelriandre / Arthesis, Fringes Archive, 2003
  • Adnos I-III, Table of the Elements, 2002
  • E = A = B = A + B (2 x 7 "), Povertech Industries, 2000
  • Songs of Milarepa, Lovely Music, 1998
  • Trilogie de la Mort, Experimental Intermedia, 1998
  • Biogenesis, Metamkine, 1996
  • Kyema-Intermediate States, Experimental Intermedia, 1992
  • Mila's Journey Inspired by a Dream, Lovely Music, 1987
  • Songs of Milarepa, Lovely Music, 1983
  • Ψ 847, Oral, 2013

Performances (selection)

Her pieces have been performed in various museums and galleries, as well as at festivals:

  • Salon des Artistes Decorateurs (Paris)
  • Foundation Maeght (St. Paul de Vence)
  • Albany Museum of the Arts (New York)
  • Gallery Rive Droite (Paris)
  • Gallery Saturday (New York)
  • Yvon Lambert Gallery (Paris)
  • Shandar Gallery (Paris)
  • Festival de Como (Italy)
  • Festival d'Automne (Paris)
  • Festival Estival (Paris)
  • International Festival of Music (Bourges, France)
  • New York Cultural Center
  • Experimental Intermedia Foundation (New York)
  • The Kitchen (New York)
  • Columbia University (New York)
  • Vanguard Theater (Los Angeles)
  • LACE (Los Angeles)
  • Mills College (Oakland)
  • University of Iowa
  • Bennington School of Music
  • San Francisco Art Institute
  • NEMO Festival (Chicago)

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Lappetites playing ELEMENTAL II by Eliane Radigue , website of the Lappetites (accessed on September 21, 2015)
  2. ↑ Éliane Radigue Biography at Lovely Music : "Her music, its source an Arp synthesizer and medium recording tape, attracted considerable attention for its sensitive, dappled purity." (Accessed on September 21, 2015)
  3. ↑ Eliane Radigue - Vice Versa, Etc. ... on Discogs : "The piece can be played: Any combination of two tracks, in one way or another, on several tape recorders, ad libitum." (Accessed on September 21, 2015)

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Radigue, Éliane
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French composer
DATE OF BIRTH January 24, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Paris