Jean-Luc Fafchamps

"My second complete Sufi word -- or cycle -- consists of five contrasting letters -- or movements -- calling for various combinations of soloists [2, 3, 4, 5], instrumental ensemble [1, 3, 5], and real-time electronics [2, 4, 5]. It confidently extends a global poetic design made of a quest for meaning, a taste for extraordinary adventures, an interest in the perfume of mystical ecstasy, and the pleasure of carefully sculpting the time and shapes that make up writing." Jean-Luc Fafchamps initially devoted himself to writing for small groups in which the piano plays a central role ("Dynamiques," for two pianos; "Melencholia si...," for two pianos and two percussionists; "Neurosuite," for a keyboard trio), before his interest in non-tempered harmonies and polyphonies of timbres led him towards other sound combinations ("A Garden," for wind quintet; "Bryce," for clarinet quintet, etc.). He is currently moving towards working for larger formations in which his taste for paradoxical constructions and his sense of synthesis are blossoming into mutually referential pieces. He is working on the development of a vast network of cycles - the Lettres Soufies - a manifesto for writing, stylistic openness as rhetoric and the use of analog correspondences as the basis for a system: "T" for ensemble and electronics, "K" for orchestra, "A" for ensemble and orchestra, "Z3" for trombone and electronics, and so on.