Journée d'études : Approches génétiques de l'improvsation (Ircam)

9h – Accueil

9h30 – Introduction

Martin Guerpin (Sorbonne Université, IReMus) et Clément Canonne (CNRS, IRCAM, STMS/APM)

9h45 – Détermination/Indétermination

La génétique du jazz sous les micros : des choix d’interprétation aux logiques d’improvisation

Martin Guerpin (Sorbonne Université) et Clément Canonne  (CNRS, IRCAM, STMS/APM)

 « How to figure it out » : harpsichord accompaniment in G. F. Handel’s continuo cantatas

Christian Kjos (Norwegian Academy of Music)

Pause – 11h15

11h30 – Approches génétiques sur le temps long : questions de stylistique et d’intertextualité

 Sonny Rollins’s Early Recordings

Ben Givan (Skidmore College, USA)

 Au seuil de l’improvisation. Mikhaïl Pletnev et le Nocturne op. 9 n° 2 de Chopin, une genèse entre création et mémoire

Inès Taillandier (CNSMdP)

13h – Pause

14h30 – Intégrer la notion d’interactions dans les approches génétiques de l’improvisation

Relations entre improvisation et mémorisation, remémoration, répétition : l’exemple du groupe El Memorioso

Nicolas Souchal (CNRS, IRCAM, STMS/APM)

Le rôle de l’improvisation dans l’élaboration de l’interprétation collective d’un thème : une étude des sessions reels de « Freedom Jazz Dance » du second quintette de Miles Davis (1967)

Martin Guerpin (Sorbonne Université, IReMus)

16h – Pause

16h15 – Le rôle de l’environnements matériels et des logiciels dans le processus de création improvisé

Voyager et l'écriture de l'improvisation virtuelle, entre le piano et l'orchestre. Genèse d'un chiasme

Pierre Saint-Germier (CNRS, IRCAM, STMS/APM)

Commencer son solo : performance dialoguée

Emilie Škrijelj (platines), Baptiste Bacot (discutant, Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion, Université d’Oslo)

Abstract

I invite you to have a look inside the creative laboratory of my artistic research project «Releasing the Loudie - harpsichord accompaniment in G. F. Handel’s continuo cantatas» (Norwegian Academy of Music, 2015-2019), where I investigated the role of the harpsichord player and the interpretation of basso continuo in Handel’s cantatas for one voice with continuo accompaniment.

How the harpsichord player shapes the improvised part above Handel’s written and rather sparsely figured bass line plays a vital part in how the composition eventually will sound to the listener. I will present some of my methods that unfolded a wide range of possible solutions in the intersection between improvisation, composition, imagination, and speculation within a source-oriented approach, and how I decided to use this material in performance and recording situations.  

To give these cantatas a musical guise that is rarely heard among performer’s today, I focused on an advanced and soloistic harpsichord continuo that includes different use of imitation, counterpoint, harmonic additions, ‘duet-making’ with the vocal part and other rarely heard features; inspired by 18th-century continuo treatises that describes this practice, as well as idioms from Handel’s own keyboard music.

Biography

Christian studied harpsichord and continuo at the Norwegian Academy of Music in Oslo, Norway and Schola Cantorum Basiliensis in Basel, Swizerland. He works with the leading orchestras and ensembles in Scandinavia, such as Barokkanerne in Norway and Concerto Copenhagen in Denmark. He is a founding member of the Swiss-based Ensemble Meridiana. In 2020 he earned his PHD in artistic research at the Norwegian Academy of Music. Christian received a three-year work grant from the Norwegian state for the period 2022-2024. From August 2025 he is associate professor of harpsichord at the Norwegian Academy of music in his native Oslo.