Pierre-Yves Macé

The music of Pierre-Yves Macé (born 1980) is a fine and unique blend of ‘contemporary’ music, electroacoustics, sound art and a hint of rock. Divisions between genres are broken down only to be rebuilt; our understanding and reference points are poetically challenged with stunning effect, cut to the very core in ways we least expect. Performed for the Festival in its entirety, the Song Recycle (2010) is a recital for piano and loud-speaker. The piece is based around audio tracks taken off YouTube videos of people performing a cappella versions of their favourite music – Christina Aguilera, Schubert, Fauré, etc. The songs are broken down, cropped, altered, and turned into a new melody; the grainy vocals accentuated by the piano line, yet at times the piano also becomes the soloist in its own right. On stage, the voices are projected via a single loudspeaker placed in the curve of the piano where a singer performing a recital would normally stand. The lied has been bastardised into a sort of reverse karaoke with the accompanist on stage and the singer remaining absent. During the concert, songs from the Song Recycle have been interwoven with electroacoustic sound bites that sit somewhere between recordings of ambient sounds and studies in concrete music. In 2014, after having spent some months as the performer of this double-sided work-in-progress, Pierre-Yves Macé decided to produce a written version for pianist-composer Denis Chouillet. The new piano piece, Accords et Accrocs is dedicated toDenis Chouillet – a single piano movement that explores a series of variations of a rather limping chord progression.