Corridor of transparency

When music manages to conjure up time, it is imbued with a truly shamanic power, that of connecting us to the forces that surround us. In past civilizations, lunar and solar rituals served as a form of conjuration. Thanks to them, the seasons could return and the sun could rise each day. What about our pulsars? Why bring them here today, at a time when their passage across the northern sky makes them accessible?
Gérard Grisey

LE NOIR DE L'ÉTOILE, composed in 1990 by Gérard Grisey, reflects the three major concerns of the end of his life:

Our musical director Tom De Cock sent unusual instructions to his fellow percussionists: "We will play a version that is non-macho and horizontal. The key-word for this production is sensuality. No over-playing. Like liquid metal. Always beautiful and non-aggressive.“ (!).

Pawel Krynski, a young astrophysics researcher, will give us a brief prelude lesson on pulsars, the ”cosmic metronomes."

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FURTHER READING

Bozar commissioned a short but comprehensive text on “Le Noir" to our dear Klaas Coulembier, published in three languages on the Bozar website, >LINK

And on the occasion of the work's performance by Les Percussions de Strasbourg in 2025, the Musica festival in Strasbourg published a text by Lambert Dousson that considerably broadens the horizon! It discusses the invisibility of women, LSD, and Joy Division. In French only, >LINK.