Fête de la percussion

Michel Cerutti Yan Maresz. Iannis Xenakis. Wolfgang Rihm

A percussion festival in the central hall at the CENTQUATRE. Persephassa is Xenakis' first monument dedicated to percussion. Six percussionists surround the audience, producing an ultra-powerful work, Persephassa, Persephone, goddess of birth, of the force of nature. The brutality is actually a meticulously organized chaos: its formalisms, sieve theory, the composer-mathematician plans the space, varies the symmetries, controls densities, periodicity, accelerations, and overlapping speeds for the same material.

The perspective of Maresz' gargantuan Festin is entirely different: taming the infinite combinations of 12 percussionists through pitch logic, giving birth to a new orchestra, unimagined until today.

• Yan Maresz Festin
• Iannis Xenakis Persephassa
• Wolfgang Rihm Tutuguri VI

Ensemble de percussions du Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris
Conductor Michel Cerutti

An IRCAM-Centre Pompidou, Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et danse de Paris coproduction. IRCAM and the CENTQUATRE are partners for experimental performance projects.