- Eliane Radigue
Eliane Radigue (born January 24, 1932) is a French electronic music composer whose work, since the early 1970s, has been almost exclusively created on a single synthesizer, the ARP 2500 modular system and tape.
She is born and grows up in
Paris in a modest family of merchants atLes Halles . Latter she marries the French-born American artistArman with whom she lived inNice while raising their three children until 1967, then in Paris. She had studied piano and was already composing before having heard a broadcast by the founder ofmusique concrete Pierre Schaeffer . She met him shortly thereafter in the early 50s, she became his student, and worked periodically during visits to Paris at theStudio d'Essai . During the early 1960s she was assistant toPierre Henry , during which time she created some of the sounds which appeared in his work. As her work gained maturity, Schaeffer and Henry considered her use of microphone feedback and long tape loops was moving away from their ideals, but her singular practice was still related to their methods.Around 1970, she created her first synthesizer-based music at NYU at a studio she shared with
Laurie Spiegel on aBuchla synthesizer installed byMorton Subotnick . Her goal by that point was to create a slow, purposeful "unfolding" of sound, which she felt to be closer to the minimal composers of New York at the time than to the French musique concrete composers who had been her previous allies. After presenting the first of her "Adnos" in 1974 atMills College at the invitation ofTerry Riley , a group of visiting French music students suggested that her music was deeply related to meditation and that she should look intoTibetan Buddhism , two things that she had very little familiarity with.Upon investigation of Tibetan Buddhism, she quickly converted and spent the next three years devoted to its practice under her guru Pawo Rinpoche, who subsequently sent her back to her musical work. She returned to composition, picking up where she left off, using the same methods and working toward the same goals as before, and finished "Adnos II" in 1979 and "Adnos III" in 1980. Then came the series of works dedicated to
Milarepa , a great Tibetan yogi, known for his "Thousand songs" representing the basis of his teaching. First she composed the "Songs of Milarepa", followed by "Jetsun Mila" an evocation of the life of this great master, the creation of these works was sponsored by the French government.At the end of the 80s, beginning of the 90s, she devotes herself to a singular three-hour work, perhaps her masterpiece, the "Trilogie de la Mort", of which the first part "kyema Intermediate states" follows the path of the continuum of the six states of conscience. The work is influenced by the Tibetan Book of the Dead
Bardo Thodol and her meditation practice as by the death of Pawo Rinpoche and her sonYves Arman . The first third of the Trilogie, Kyema, was her first release recording, issued byPhill Niblock 's XI label.In 2000, she made in Paris her last electronic work "l'Ile Re-sonante" for which she received in 2006 the
Golden Nica Award at the festivalArs Electronica inLinz .In 2001 upon request from the
double bass and electronic composerKasper T. Toeplitz , she makes her first instrumental work "Elemental II", a work taken up again with the laptopimprovisation groupThe Lappetites she joined. She participated in their first album "Before the Libretto" on theQuecksilber label in 2005.Since 2004 she dedicated herself to works for purely acoustical instrument. First with the American cello player Charles Curtis, the work "Naldjorlak" was created in December 2005 in New York and later played in 25 concerts across the U.S. and in Europe. Then "Naldjorlak IInd" for the two
basset-horn players Carole Robinson and Bruno Martinez, created in September 2007 at theAarau Festival (Switzerland). All three are currently working at the trio "Naldjorlak IIIter"Representative creations
* "Chry-ptus" New York Cultural Art Center, 1971
* "7th Birth" New York, 1972
* "Geelriandre" Théatre de la Musique, Paris, 1972
* "Phi 847" The Kitchen, New York, 1973
* "Arthesis" Theater Vanguard, Los Angeles, 1973
* "Biogénésis" and "Transamorem Transmortem" The Kitchen, New York, 1974
* "Adnos" Festival d'Automne, Paris, 1974
* "7 petites pièeces pour un Labyrinthe Sonore" GERM, Paris, 1975
* "Adnos II" Mills College, Oakland, 1980
* "Adnos III, Prélude à Milarepa", Experimental Intermedia Foundation, New York, 1982
* "5 songs of Milarepa" San Francisco Art Institute, 1984
* "Jetsun Mila, Vie de Milarepa", GERM, Paris, 1986
* "Kyema" New Langton Arts, San Francisco, 1988
* "Kailasha" Experimental Intermedia Foundation, New York, 1991
* "Koume" Mamac, Festival MANCA, Nice, 1993The last three works constitute the 3 parts of the "Trilogie de la Mort".
* "Elemental II" Festival Cités soniques, CCmix, January 2004
* "Naldjorlak" Tenri Cultural Institute, New York, December 2005Discography
*"E = A = B = A + B" (2 x 7" limited edition) (Galerie Yvon Lambert, 1969, taken up by Povertech Industries, 2000)
*"Songs of Milarepa" (single disc) (Lovely Music, 1983)
*"Jetsun Mila" (Lovely Music, 1987)
*"Kyema, Intermediate States" (Experimental Intermedia, 1992)
*"Mila's Journey Inspired by a Dream" (Lovely Music, 1992)
*"Biogenesis" (Metamkine, 1996)
*"Trilogie de la Mort" (Experimental Intermedia, 1998)
*"Songs of Milarepa" (two discs) (Lovely Music, 1998)
*"Adnos I-III" (Table of the Elements, 2002)
*"Geelriandre / Arthesis" (Fringes Archive, 2003)
*"Elemental II" (Records of Sleaze Art, 2004)
*"L'île re-sonante" (Shiin, 2005)
*"Chry-ptus" (Schoolmap, 2007)
*"Naldjorlak" for Charles Curtis, (Shiin, 2008)The triple -CD "Trilogie de la Mort" includes "Kyema".The two disc "Songs of Milarepa" includes "Mila's Journey Inspired by a Dream" .
With "The Lappetites"
*"Before the Libretto" (Quecksilber, 2005)
External links
* [http://www.lovely.com/bios/radigue.html Eliane Radigue]
* [http://kalvos.org/radigue.html Eliane Radigue]
* [http://lappetites.poemproducer.com/ The Lappetites]
* [http://www.gardenvariety.org/projects/radigue/about.html Naldjorlak]
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