Paysages composés
Getting teenagers to compose
Paysages composés (Composed Landscapes) guides teenagers along a path that leads from listening to composing. It could be described as an inquiry into a territory, the one closest to the students: the surroundings of their school, its roads, its urban fabric, its contact with the countryside. The project engages young people in understanding the world around them, and develops in them a certain aesthetics of listening, drawing on everything a recording of a sound scene carries.
The project began in 2013 with Ars Nova ensemble instrumental and Sandrine Piq, in four upper secondary schools (lycées) in Poitou-Charentes: Ruelle-sur-Touvre, Civray, La Rochelle and Melle. Over two school years, each group of student “composers” worked with two musicians from Ars Nova in residence, recorded the soundscapes of their town, drew musical material from them, and turned it into a composition. In parallel, “video maker” groups did similar work with video artist Alice Ferré. The final concert in May 2015 brought together the four mixed pieces with video at the TAP in Poitiers, along with a piece by Grégoire Lorieux and Alice Ferré.
From 2017, “Paysages pour quatuor”, an arts education project, was led by Grégoire Lorieux and the Quatuor Diotima in the Centre region, then in Mirecourt (Vosges, Grand Est).
The method
- Students listen to their sound environment (soundscapes, meditative listening).
- They record this environment (field recording).
- They listen again, understand the sounds, find music in them. They extract interesting gestures and may turn them into loops (Audacity).
- Professional musicians listen to these sounds and gestures, and “imitate” them. All this musical material is recorded.
- Students mix field sounds and instrumental takes and compose step by step, finding sonic and gestural correspondences: yes, teenagers can compose.
- The composer Grégoire Lorieux “notates” the students' mixes, separates the instrumental material from the electroacoustic part, and assembles the sequences into a score for the musicians.
- Final concert: the piece for instruments and tape.
The ears are fresh: there is no stage of describing sound, which would be tedious and needlessly abstract. Students give the musicians the first clues for imitating their sounds, and naturally find which category to imitate: rhythms first, then resonances, pitches, morphologies, textures. A kind of intuitive instrumental musique concrète. The act of composition really does take place, at the precise moment when the student projects a gesture, a musical intention. They compose without realising it.
The editions
with Ars Nova in Poitou-Charentes (2013–2015)
Four schools: Ruelle-sur-Touvre, Civray, La Rochelle, Melle. Final concert at the TAP in Poitiers, 2015, with videos by Alice Ferré.
Ruelle-sur-Touvre (clarinet, cello): dawn, from darkness to light, from formlessness to form
Ruelle: Read the score ↗
Civray (flute, double bass): psychedelia, loop, repetition
Civray: Read the score ↗
La Rochelle (flute, violin): fluidity and the passing landscape, matter in motion
La Rochelle: Read the score ↗
Melle (saxophone, double bass): all the way to dazzlement
Melle: Read the score ↗
Paysage, 2, the ensemble piece of the concert, with video by Alice Ferré (work page, in French)
Île-de-France (2014–2015): with Ars Nova
with the BTS spatial design students of the Lycée Chérioux, Vitry-sur-Seine
Lycée Chérioux: Read the score ↗
with the Quatuor Diotima
Paysages pour quatuor from Grégoire Lorieux on Vimeo.
Project at the agricultural high school of Fondettes (LEGTA Tours Fondettes Agrocampus), 2017, with Anne Petit (socio-cultural education teacher) and 23 final-year students.
Paysages pour quatuor from Grégoire Lorieux on Vimeo.
Project at the agricultural high school of Blois, 2017, with Valérie Subra (socio-cultural education teacher) and 24 students.
Project at the Lycée agricole et viticole de la Gabillière, Amboise, 2018, with Sylvestre Grémy (socio-cultural education teacher and facilitator) and 32 tenth-grade students specialising in wine or horses.
“Incroyables paysages auditifs”, project at the Collège Guy-Dolmaire, Mirecourt, 2023, with Jean-Baptiste Brungard (teacher) and ninth-grade students.
↑“Diotima”, project at the Collège Guy-Dolmaire, Mirecourt, 2024, with Jean-Baptiste Brungard (teacher) and ninth-grade students.
↑Media
À l'école de l'écoute, on France Musique (Le Cri du Patchwork, in French)