French Ensemble Court-Circuit to perform contemporary music

The Department of Music, in conjunction with The Robert & Carol Morris Center for 21st Century Music, will present Ensemble Court-Circuit at 7:30 p.m. March 19 in Lippes Concert Hall in Slee Hall, North Campus.

A composer workshop with the ensemble will take place at 10 a.m. March 20 in Lippes Concert Hall.

The ensemble’s program includes “Shards” (2002-03), Joshua Fineberg; “A mesure” (1996), Philippe Hurel; “Michigan trio” (1992), Philippe Manoury; and “Talea” (1986), Gerard Grisey.

Advance tickets for Ensemble Court-Circuit are $12 for the general public; $9 for UB faculty, staff, alumni and senior citizens; and $5 for students.  At the door, tickets are $20, $15 and $8. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Slee Hall box office at (716) 645-2921, at the Center for the Arts box office and online at tickets.com

The ensemble, as noted on its website, “is off again on a long journey alongside composers of a form of music we should proudly call by its name, contemporary music.” Members include Jérémie Fèvre, flute; Pierre Dutrieu, clarinet; Alexandra Greffin, violin; Alexis Descharmes, cello; Eve Payeur, percussion; and Jean-Marie Cottet, piano, all under the musical direction of Jean Droyer.

Philippe Hurel and Pierre-André Valade founded Ensemble Court-Circuit in 1991, following an encounter with Barbara and Luigi Polla, founders of the Analix Galery in Geneva. The ensemble, led by Jean Deroyer and made up of top-level musicians, was quickly recognized as an outstanding ensemble.

It has been invited to major international festivals and musical institutions, including Ircam, Opéra, Radio-France and Cité de la Musique (Paris); Musica (Strasbourg); Aix en Provence Festival and 38e Rugissants (Grenoble); Manca (Nice); GMEM (Marseille); Whynote (Dijon); Warsaw Autumn, Ultrashall and Maerzmuzik (Berlin); Ultima (Oslo); Traiettorie (Parma); Roma Europa, Music Factory (Bergen); Gaïda (Vilnius); and NYYD (Tallin).

 The ensemble is also involved in interdisciplinary projects. It has frequently taken part in Paris Opera ballet premieres and has been involved in several ciné-concerts.

In 2011-12, Court-Circuit began a collaboration with the Bouffes du Nord Theater in Paris to perform chamber operas; the first one, “The second woman,” inspired by the film “Opening Night” by J. Cassavetes, was performed in April-May 2011 and has played again in France and abroad since its première.

The ensemble also was a member of two European projects that recently ended: Integra project, whose goal was to create a European environment that encourages the composition and the sharing of music with electronics, and Re: new music project whose aim was to support the circulation and performance of existing high-quality ensemble repertoire. It has just joined the new European project New Music: New Audiences, which aims to establish a lasting pan-European community—and harvest a pool of knowledge—on audience development within new music.