Sounding Limits: Pascale Criton, Silvia Tarozzi, & Deborah Walker

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Since the 1980s Pascale Criton has been exploring sound variability, microtunings, multisensory reception and the spatialization of listening. Between 1974 and 1987, Criton was the music advisor of the philosopher Gilles Deleuze. Criton’s work focuses on the sound continuum, informed by these experiences as well as studies with microtonal pioneer Ivan Wyschnegradsky, spectralist Gérard Grisey, contemporary music composer Jean-Etienne Marie, and training in electroacoustic and musical computing. Her compositions use non-standard tunings of string instruments often referred to as a scordatura, which have become a trademark of her technique.

Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker are actively involved in the fields of contemporary experimental music and free improvisation. Together with Pascale Criton they have been exploring microtonal extended techniques and gestural processes on a violin and a cello tuned in 1/16 of a tone. The compositions that have resulted from this process are considered as corporal scripts. They challenge the perception of form and the role of interpretation, transforming it into a creative process. Time and motion are no longer defined by pitches and metrical systems but are embodied as diagrams and moods. Pascale has described that her interest in micro-intervals “goes hand in hand with my attraction to small differences: small intervals that reveal the qualities of sound, from the complex components of timbre to those of noise. They allow the introduction of minute variations in time and movement. These slight differences stimulate awareness of sensations, variations in speed, degrees of fluidity and energy involved in dynamic transformations. The microtonal tuning renews the expressive sensitivity of the instruments and calls for attentive listening to control tiny sonic variables while experiencing the limits of perception.”

Constellation’s presentation of the work of Pascale Criton has been made possible through Jazz & New Music, a program of FACE Foundation and the Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States with support from the Florence Gould Foundation, the French Ministry of Culture, Institut français, SACEM (Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs de musique) and Bureau Export. Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker's visit was made possible through the generous support of the Italian Cultural Institute of Chicago.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Constellation, 3111 N. Western Avenue, CHICAGO, United States