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  • Research

    The fundamental principle of IRCAM is to encourage productive interaction among scientific research, technological developments, and contemporary music production. Since its establishment in 1977, this initiative has provided the foundation for the institute’s activities. One of the major issues is the importance of contributing to the renewal of musical expression through science and technology. Conversely, sp…

    • Research Topics
    • The STMS Lab
    • Research Teams
    • Sound Systems and Signals: Audio/Acoustics, InstruMents
    • Acoustic and Cognitive Spaces
    • Sound Perception and Design
    • Sound Analysis-Synthesis
    • Sound Music Movement Interaction
    • Musical Representations
    • Analysis of Musical Practices
    • Projects
    • Sound Workshop
    • The Musical Body
    • Creative Dynamics
    • Finished Projects
  • Creation

    IRCAM is an internationally recognized research center dedicated to creating new technologies for music. The institute offers a unique experimental environment where composers strive to enlarge their musical experience through the concepts expressed in new technologies.

    • Composers & Artists in Studio
    • Mauro Lanza in studio
    • Chloé Thévenin in studio
    • Oren Boneh in studio
    • Tristan Murail in studio
    • Martin Matalon in studio
    • Sébastien Gaxie in studio
    • Murcof in the studio
    • Vimala Pons in studio
    • Lucie Antunes in studio
    • Deena Abdelwahed in the studio
    • Music-Fictions
    • Artistic Research Residency
    • Artistic Residencies: The Blog
    • Rendez Vous 24.25
    • 2024-2025
    • Replay Concerts
    • Seasons from 1996 to present
    • ManiFeste-2024 Website
    • ManiFeste festival from 2012 to 2024
    • L’Étincelle, IRCAM’s journal of creation
  • Transmission

    In support of IRCAM's research and creation missions, the educational program seeks to shed light on the current and future meaning of the interactions among the arts, sciences, and technology as well as sharing its models of knowledge, know-how, and innovations with the widest possible audience.

    • Training Courses
    • Training Courses 2025.26
    • Max, Max for Live
    • Computer-Assisted Composition
    • ASAP & Partiels
    • Sound spatialization
    • Generative AI
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    • Higher Education
    • Cursus Program on Composition and Computer Music
    • Master ATIAM
    • Sound Design Master's Program
    • Mixed-Music
    • AIMove Master
    • Discover Research at IRCAM
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    • Cultural Mediation at Middle School Students
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  • Songs & Voices








Fri 27 October 2023,
6 p.m.
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Creation
Concert






Songs & Voices

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In the work for electric ensemble Five Songs (Kafka's sirens), written in 2017 for Ensemble C Barré, the title alludes to - but is not a literal reference to - Franz Kafka's story Le silence des sirènes. In fact, Kafka's story isn't so much about telling an alternative history (who would say that the sirens didn't sing) as it is about suggesting a paradox, insinuating a doubt of perspective.

It's rather to this - to a possible paradoxical perspective - that the title alludes. This is a form articulated in five instrumental "songs", in which the poetic question that emerged was: what remains of singing when the voice disappears?

What can be the essence of singing, and how can we perceive singing when no one sings? This presence of song in the absence of a singing voice was the driving force behind instrumental sound research, a kind of aporia that - like Kafka's paradox - aimed to push back the limits of the instrumental "visible".

This first question naturally calls for a question that is in some ways the opposite: what is voice without song? The voice for its pure presence, devoid of its orphic function? The voice as instrumental body, and as body tout court, the voice as carnal presence that precedes and surpasses speech. A kind of apotropaic object that we would know without understanding.

The exploration of this other half of the question led to the integration of the vocal ensemble Neue Vocalsolisten, with whom Ensemble C Barré has been musically involved for several years, in this musical journey that takes place between these two extremes. Extreme absence and extreme presence, singing in the voice and the voice without singing. Between these two focal points of paradox lies perhaps what attracts Ulysses so much to approach the sirens.

This journey is structured in several moments that explore different aspects of the voice as a body, the voice as an instrumental body, the voice as song, and the voice that, by embodying the word, transforms, cancels and surpasses it, to form a total work lasting around 1h15.

Francesca Verunelli Songs & Voices - Premiere 2023
Commissioned by the French State with the support of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and Sacem

Ensemble C Barré
Neue Vocalsolisten
Sébastien Boin 
artistic and musical direction
Charles Bascou electronics
Jean Millot computer music design
Antonello Pocetti staging

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  • https://www.labiennale.org/en/music/2023/biennale-musica-2023/francesca-verunelli-songsvoices-2023-10-27-17-00
Executive production by the Ensemble C Barré. Coproduction Venice Biennale; Ircam - Centre Pompidou / Les Spectacles Vivants; Eclat festival; GMEM - Centre national de création musicale; GRAME Support from the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and Impuls neue Musik.
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