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    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…

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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
    • Practical Information
    • Higher Education
    • Cursus Program on Composition and Computer Music
    • Master ATIAM
    • Sound Design Master's Program
    • Mixed-Music
    • AIMove Master
    • Discover Research at IRCAM
    • Cultural Outreach
    • Cultural Mediation at Middle School Students
    • Médiations culturelles au lycée
    • Digital Workshops
    • TACT
    • Images of a Work Collection
    • Group Tours
    • ManiFeste-2025 Festival Academy
    • 2025 ÉLAN award
    • Spatial Composition Workshop
    • In Situ Polytopes
    • ULYSSES Ensemble
    • Auditors
  • Innovations

    Engaged with societal and economic issues at the intersection of culture and IT, research at Ircam has forged a reputation for itself in the world of international research as an interdisciplinary benchmark in the science and technology of sound and music, constantly attentive to the new needs and uses in society.

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Lucie Antunes in studio

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Interview with artist Lucie Antunes
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Going Straight to the Essential - Artistic Issues

Trained at the CNSMD in Lyon, Lucie Antunes knows Ircam extremely well; both its reputation on the contemporary music scene and in the field of scientific research. An excellence that has attracted her for a long time. Evolving in the so-called "contemporary music" universe, the tools that the young drummer and percussionist uses in her electro music practice are certainly not those developed at IRCAM. She admits that she favors "an intuitive approach" to computer music. This residency at IRCAM nevertheless seems natural for her, given her background and her technological and artistic aspirations.

Launched in the fall, this collaboration also comes at a turning point in her approach to writing, as the composer has recently embraced a broad effort to decomplexify.

In her first album entitled Sergueï in 2019 (on INFINE and CRYBABY), certain sounds, certain textures, were the result of associations of multiple instruments, as varied as the marimba or the Ondes Martenot.

"Some pieces were made up of a stack of more than 200 tracks!" says Lucie Antunes. "I wanted to see if this complexity might hide some gaps in the composition itself. I needed to find a form of purification, to use less material, to look for different colors, with work on the voices, on more 'club' colors, and above all on a greater readability of the speech. These are also shorter tracks, about 3 minutes instead of 10 minutes in the first album. In short, I needed to empty the suitcase and go to the essential. I've been at it for two years now and every time I listen to these songs again, it feels good."

The result is Carnaval, a second album (to be released next April, also on INFINE and CRYBABY) fed by the liberating spirit of this peculiar celebration, whose main purpose is to overthrow social norms and hierarchies. Lucie Antunes uses instruments, sometimes rudimentary, that are heard in carnivals all over the world - gongs, whistles, percussion of all kinds, voices and shouts, mixed with textures borrowed from Meredith Monk. But, she points out, "it is a 2023 carnival. It is also a carnival of modernity".

Taking the Lid Off - Technological Issues

Taking the lid off is also, literally, what Lucie Antunes came to do at IRCAM. Although the music has already been written, and the album is already in the can, the tour is yet to come. A tour that, as it stands, would have required cumbersome logistics, since this music is intended for a rich and varied instrumentarium: vibraphone, marimba, gongs, tubular bells, and many others... . "In concert, this means a lot of material and heavy lifting," she says, "and that's not very pleasant in everyday life. Synthesizers make it possible to travel lighter. The problem is that, in their current form, they do not allow for the instrumental gesture and at the same time richness of the timbre."

So the idea is to make electronic instruments that control synthesizers, but in such a way that the musician can experience the sensations she has with acoustic instruments.

"I want to keep the gesture of a percussionist, with all the variety of playing styles that this implies. For example, we worked on a MIDI marimba, first to refine the rendering of attacks and dynamics, and then to control other types of instrumental samples that are part of my instrument set. This means sampling these instruments, but also associating them with the corresponding gesture, so that the synthesizer can produce the desired sound. Like a trompe-l'oreille. In the future, we may go towards the synthesis of other sounds even if, personally, hearing an organ triggered by a percussion gesture confuses me a little: I'm not very keen on it."

It is also up to the researchers at IRCAM to make these new instruments more ergonomic.

"I'm a performer," says Lucie Antunes. "I'm not a geek, contrary to popular belief. To compose, I use technological tools, but I don't write code. With the scientists at IRCAM, we're going to make these new instruments easier to handle, like acoustic instruments."

Lucie Antunes © Marco Dos Santos

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Biography

person

Lucie Antunes

Musician, performer, artistic and stage director, Lucie Antunes has been passionate about music since childhood. After receiving several conservatory prizes, she enrolled at the CNSMD in Lyon. With a classical and contemporary background, in 2013 she tur…

À découvrir lors de ce concert

Performance
Creation

Electro-Odyssey 1

Thursday 12 January 2023
Ircam
L'Ircam en Fête with Lucie Antunes, Tovel x 1024 architecture
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