Territorial composition
Music written to be played outdoors, with the people of a place and with whatever already lives there.
An outdoor site is not a second-rate concert hall. It has its distances, its winds, its reverberation, its bird timetables, and residents who know where sound carries. Nature Sonore takes all of this as material.
Amateur and professional musicians, naturalists who know the area, the people who come to listen and the landscape itself all enter a collective work with what they know how to do. The work consists in building the situation in which this encounter produces music.
Each season settles in a territory, stays as long as it takes, and ends with an outdoor premiere, free and open to anyone passing by.
No platform, no amplification, no rows of chairs. Sound comes from everywhere, and the best seat is wherever you are. You can walk, sit in the grass, let the children run.
The input of the people who know the site (nature conservation trusts, bird protection groups, forestry and biodiversity agencies) is crucial: the music is tuned to the environment, the seasons, the species, the silences. Nothing living serves as scenery; everything plays its part.
The audience may be handed an instrument, help bring the site to life, and take part in artistic decisions. The shape of the piece depends on what they do with it. Being invited to applaud is not the same as being invited to play.
The works in the repertoire operate as protocols: flexible forces, adaptable durations, anchor points to be redefined on each site. The next territory rewrites them with its own forces.
Wind bands, music schools, choirs, conservatoires. They are the ones who play, and the season is built at their pace.
A national centre for musical creation or a festival brings co-production and a link to the professional network.
Conservation trusts, bird protection groups, site managers. They open up the sites and share their knowledge of the living world.
Towns, groupings of municipalities, departments. Hosting, logistics, audiences, and the steady presence that makes one season lead to the next.
Three pieces were created specifically for places and people. They can be performed again, or inspire new ones, wherever there is a landscape and people ready to listen.
small orchestra scattered across the landscape
The musicians spread out over the site, settling like birds choosing a perch. Some vanish behind the rocks, and you hear them from their hiding places. Twice, the landscape contracts into a dense block of sound.
musical game for instrumentalists and a percussionist audience
Every singing bird holds a territory and marks its place in space. Each member of the audience receives a small instrument, explores their territory, listens to the others and answers them. Meanwhile, the instrumentalists play the song of the black wheatear, which has vanished from the French countryside.
vocalists, instrumentalists and audience
A music that mimics ecological corridors, the invisible paths left open for animals to move along. Sounds and voices come and go, leaving a fragile trace across the site. Anyone who wishes adds their own voice to the weave.
a wildlife-watch piece, at nightfall
A form that alternates walking and stillness, at the hour when sight withdraws and hearing takes over. Being written for forest sites.
Spring 2026 · Roche de Sauterre, Manzat (Puy-de-Dôme)
A season led with the Union Musicale en Combrailles, co-produced by Grame, national centre for musical creation.
See Year 1Puy-de-Dôme and Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes
The project widens to other towns and other natural sites. Interested territories can get in touch now.
You need an outdoor site, an amateur ensemble ready to play, a few willing naturalists and a year ahead of you. Everything else is open to discussion.
Write to Grégoire Lorieux