Olivier Innocenti, beyond notes - Resmusicaresmusica

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Atypical musician who seduces and intrigues at the same time by his eclecticism, Olivier Innocenti lends himself to our questions in order to clarify an engaging and somewhat iconoclastic personality with multiple facets.

Resmusica: accordionist, bandoneonist, pedagogue, composer, improviser and performing exploiting all possible transversalities of music, explains the why of the concert accordion.

Olivier Innocenti: It is surprisingly listening to a Bach fugue played at the accordion that I had love at first sight for this instrument.I was, at the time, eight years old and I decided to start my musical studies in the class of Christiane Bonnay in Monaco then in that of Max Bonnay in Paris, two of the precursors of the concert accordion whichLicense later to consolidate international, German, Scandinavian and Russian training in particular, through the National Union of French Accordionists (UNAF) while opening the way to electro acoustic music under the direction of Christophe Oger parallel.

RM: Okay for the concert accordion, but why the bandoneon when you are not tanguero?Isn't it a little risky to walk between two worlds?

OI: I approached the accordion as a sound generator for electroacoustic parts.Using the chromatic bandoneon, I wanted to explore the classic works usually played at the accordion;Bach of course, but above all François Couperin because there is a real analogy of tessituration or rather ambitus between the harpsichord (unlike the organ) and the bandoneon.It is also necessary to remember for the little story that the bandoneon was used for religious offices in Germany in the 19th century, in the same way as the harmonium which also belongs, like the accordion or the organ, to the instruments with reedsfree.

RM: Playing the bandoneon without belonging to the "baroque" world and the bandoneon without being tanguero, being also performing at the same time as a recognized concert accordionist, how do you live all this?

OI: It is probably through my activity as a teacher and composer that I was able to put bounds to my creative ardor and synthesize my transgressive activities!(laughs) From the collection of sounds and search for sound materials in the electroacoustic device, I was led to develop improvisation on instruments that I did not necessarily master as a soloist, such as the pianothat I only approach through improvisation.The fruit of this experience, this joy and this passion, I transmit it in my generative improvisation lessons at the conservatory, within the framework of the module "music in movement" delivered in common with the dance classes, and it isIn this place that we explore the situation of performance, that is to say the expression of music, an inner art, moment of correspondence between all the participants at a moment "t»In a new space of common freedom thus created.This is ultimately a given situation, the circumstance, which initiates generative improvisation thus opening up a more transversal vision of music, in collaboration with other artistic fields such as dance, theater, video, etc..

RM: This generative improvisation naturally brings you to the field of performance.Can you tell us a word?

OI: I started this type of experience, in Nice, at the age of 20, with concerts in duet with my friend Florient Azoulay, actor and playwright, then the meetings multiplied with the directorsScene and choreographers, maintained by my appetite for research on sound, opening on cooperation with theater (Niels Arestrup or Xavier Gallais), cinema (Laurent Fiévet) or dance (Abou and Nawal Lagraa) or radio (The ghost of Azyiadé de Pierre Loti on France Culture).

RM: Improvisator, of course, but also composer, two facets of the same medal?

OI: For many years I composed by recording improvisations in the accordion with many of these sound effects that we find in particular in Sofia Gubaïdulina and other contemporary compositions of importance, then I did with theComputer of the assemblies that I completed with taking its made on electronic instruments, thus finding myself with mixed works of which I gradually extended the instrumentarium (strings, prepared piano, percussion, medium oriental instruments).The process is always the same: collection of sounds coming from various instrumental improvisations, then a treatment time before finalization with the director or choreographer.In this invitation to manipulate other stamps than those of the accordion, I met a Midi Eigenharp controller which allowed me to compose almost in real time by reproducing with finesse all the stamps of the orchestra.In fact, I came to the composition due to the instrumental gesture and not by a pre -established musical thought secondarily orchestrated.

RM: Explain to us the different steps leading from performance to performance.

OI: There is a first phase which corresponds to the quest for meaning that is done on the theme, on history, in collaboration with the director or the choreographer.Then begins my unregistered improvisation work on stamps, alloys of sounds, orchestrations, instrument associations and purely electronic or instrumental matter;Then follow the recording and selection of the chosen fragments which are then subject to the project manager, adapted to the needs of the plateau by interactive work benefiting from the mutual influences of the two parties.Thus is born the digital file which constitutes a work base which will be easily modified to reach a consensus and to adapt as best as possible to the scenic device.

RM: So your compositions are never frozen?

OI: Absolutely and this is the great advantage of the sound file, never engraved in marble, but on the contrary always accessible to the evolution, modification and recycling that I sometimes use.

RM: Another important point, your file compositions are never written.Isn't it painful to knowingly do without the interpretative vision of other musicians?

OI: In fact, the interpretation is done on two levels: on the one hand during the collection of sound, moment when each participant gives his individual inner vision in the improvisation he realizes, and on the other hand in theFinalization of sound scenography (Florent Dalmas) by mixing on the board (dynamic, tempo, spatialization, etc.)

RM: You are part of the very closed club of musicians mastering the eigenharp.Can you tell us a little more?

OI: Eigenharp freed me from all servitude, because unprecedented, without past and without repertoire I felt in his contact even more free.It is a hyper -expressive instrument in the context of improvisation, capable of reproducing all the real recorded or virtual stamps which is directly part of my personal development from the electronic MIDI accordion.

RM: What are your sources of inspiration?

Oi: Employing the abstraction of pure music, my music is rather part of a narrative vein inspired by the treated meetings and themes (Sufi songs with Abou Lagraa; mirroring the East and the West with theGhost of Azyiadé; beat generation with on the road to Kerouac).The dramaturgy around history nourishes me by giving me stylistic tracks and orchestration ideas.For example in my composition on Kerouac's work, I invested a lot on Free Jazz, the sounds of the big band programmed on the Eigenharp, on programmed batteries, on Indian songs in improvisation with the concert accordion, etc.The musical gesture is always for me meaningful.

RM: To conclude, what are the important projects in your short -term news?

OI: as a composer, we can hear one of my electroacoustic creations currently at the Château de Valençay as part of the exhibition "Du Louvre à Valençay" on a scenography of Florient Azoulay.I also have three current commands for 2022: original music for the ballet on your shoulders of Nawal Lagraa;Electroacoustic music for the IF Music Be the Food of Love show by Alexandre Martin-Varroy;A performance "on the road" after Jack Kerouac for electronic accordion and Eigenharp in collaboration with Xavier Gallais (design), Adrien Zanni (sound scenography) and Florence Jamart (visual arts).As an instrumentalist, I would like to quote the "radical" project which is based on the realization of graphic and animated partitions which I also carry out the project as a generative improvisor.

Crédits photographiques : Olivier Innocenti (Eigenharp et accordéonde concert) : © Florence Jamart

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