Wednesday 11 May 2016, 8pm
Michel Chion presents a very special multi-speaker diffusion of his pioneering musique concrète masterwork, Requiem.
“Chion's Requiem probably represents one of the defining moments of the musique concrète canon, a work all other pieces must be judged by and one of the few absolute masterpieces of the genre.” – Modern Illusions
“Michel Chion’s 1973 composition “Requiem” is a noisy and surreal deconstruction/recreation of the Funeral Mass. In retrospect it sounds positively pre-industrial and is jam packed with grating, annoy-the-dog high pitched frequencies, snatches of actual church music and some genuinely scary uses of the human voice. Listen loudly in the dark if you dare.” – Dangerous Minds
Liner notes on the 2007 Sub Rosa re-issue of Requiem from Michel Chion.
Born in 1947 in Creil, France, Michel Chion is a composer of experimental music. He teaches at several institutions within France and currently holds the post as Associate Professor at the Université de Paris where he is a theoretician and teacher of audio-visual relationships. After studying literature and music he began to work for the ORTF (French Radio and Television Organisation) Service de La recherche as assistant to Pierre Schaeffer in 1970. He was a member of the Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRM) between 1971-1976. His compositional pieces elaborate on schaefferian theories and methodologies which Schaeffer referred to as musique concrète. He has also written a number of books as well as essays expounding his theories of the interaction between sound and image within the medium of film.
