2025 Stock. French pianist and composer Melaine Dalibert (b. 1979) presents Magic Square, an eight-track suite that synthesizes algorithmic composition with contemplative performance. A professor at Rennes Conservatory and member of Ensemble 0, Dalibert applies mathematical sequences to piano composition, creating works that challenge conventional temporal perception.
Trained at the Paris Superior Conservatoire, Dalibert has established himself as an advocate for minimalist and experimental repertoires, programming the Autres Mesures festival while developing his own compositional practice. His approach transforms systematic processes into intimate acoustic experiences, exploiting the piano's resonant properties through extended durations and subtle harmonic relationships. Magic Square demonstrates Dalibert's method of embedding generative patterns within sensitive instrumental expression. Each composition emerges from predetermined structural logic while maintaining space for performative nuance, creating what David Sylvian - who collaborated on Dalibert's Night Blossoms - described as "cosmic expansiveness... vibrational waves traversing the universe."
The album continues Dalibert's investigation of algorithmic determinism as compositional material, following releases on Another Timbre, Elsewhere Music, Sub Rosa, Flau, and Ici d'Ailleurs. His compositions, regularly performed by pianists including Stéphane Ginsburgh, Vanessa Wagner, and Nicolas Horvath, stretch temporal boundaries while inviting both detached observation and engaged exploration.
Through systematic compositional processes, Dalibert creates music that functions as both technical investigation and meditative practice, positioning mathematical structure as pathway to contemplative states rather than academic exercise.