Percussions de Strasbourg and Sixtrum join forces to perform a fascinating work, Le Noir de l’étoile. In it, Gérard Grisey orchestrates an ensemble of percussionists together with the sonic vibrations of pulsars.
Gérard Grisey composed Le Noir de l’étoile for a percussion ensemble accompanied by the sonic vibrations of pulsars—rotating stars detected by radio telescopes. This fascinating work was first performed by Les Percussions de Strasbourg in 1991 at the Ars Musica festival in Brussels, and shortly afterward at Musica. Its first movement, Tempus ex Machina (1978), is in fact a literal reprise of an earlier piece premiered in 1980 by the percussion ensemble of McGill University in Montreal, now known as Sixtrum. The two ensembles will meet for the very first time to share the score and will join forces—twelve musicians on stage—for a rare, expanded performance of the work’s final movement.
Introduction
Broadcast of a reading by Kumiko Kotera, astrophysicist at CNRS, director of the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, and author of L'Univers violent (Albin Michel, 2025).
Program
Gérard Grisey
Le Noir de l’étoile
(1989-1990)
pour 6 percussions disposées autour du public, bande magnétique et retransmission in situ de signaux astronomiques
Cast
Les Percussions de Strasbourg
percussion Hyoungkwon Gil, Théo His-Mahier, Youjin Lee, François Papirer, Enrico Pedicone, Thibaut Weber
Sixtrum
percussion João Catalão, Catherine Cherrier, Philip Hornsey, Kristie Ibrahim, Fabrice Marandola, Stuart Jackson
stage management Laurent Fournaise
sound Olivier Pfeiffer
in partnership with Le Vivier (QC/CA)
with the support of the Québec Government Offices Abroad, the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Institut Français
