Last News From the Front

LATEST NEWS

A nice presentation of a lecture by Jean-Jacques Birgé at Master2 MMI - Paris Sorbonne (February 2008).

Pop'Lab by Birgé is on line on Poptronics, plus an interview with Annick Rivoire and Elisabeth Lebovici (7 pages to be downloaded in pdf and printed).

Jean-Jacques Birgé stopped his activitiés at Les Allumés du Jazz. He will probably remain writing in the Journal, as he does for Muziq.

Birgé and Nicolas CLAUSS will perform as a duet on September 20th 2008 at Comète 347 in Paris (45 Rue du Faubourg du Temple 75010, Metro République or Goncourt, Reservations 01 42 41 89 32) for a new evening organized by label D'autres Cordes.

Next performances of Nabaz'mob (site feat. videos, pictures, links...), the opera for 100 smart rabbits created with Antoine SCHMITT in May 2006 at Centre Pompidou, Paris (coproduction Web Flash Festival & Violet), will be on October 4th 2008 in Paris (Nuit Blanche), November 2nd in Besançon, March 23rd in Evry, then Brazil, China, etc. Last performances were in Issy (Le Cube Festival), Amsterdam (Recalling RFID, De Balie) ending the Autumn Tour of this strange opera which got 70 000 visitors at the Rabbit Theater in New York (09/2006) at the Wired NextFest. Birgé has been recording the English, American, German, Italian and Spanish versions of Nabaztag. Birgé and Schmitt are working for Violet on two new objects (top secret).

Two new artistic projects are announced, one with Antoine Schmitt, the other one with Nicolas Clauss and many other collaborators...

Half of magazine Sextant #3 is on Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ. The other 34 pages are on cellist Vincent Courtois. It also features interviews of Bernard VITET, Antoine SCHMITT and Nicolas CLAUSS. It's beautiful, it's nice, there is a free CD of unissued tracks and you can order it on their site ! Jazzosphère publishes a new interview with Jean-Jacques Birgé in its #32 (June 2007). Audiorama has reissued Planeta cassettes with an audio interview by Birgé on #7 (1986) and unissued music by Un Drame Musical Instantané. The English automatic Google translator has been installed onJean-Jacques Birgé's French blog so you can read (or guess !) his daily illustrated articles. Link on Home Page is Medley. A nice article by Guy Darol in Jazz Mag about CD in duo with Michel Houellebecq (Mai 2007). Birgé and Vitet have composed music for two films by Pierre-Oscar Lévy.

Concert as a trio with Donkey Monkey : Ève RISSER (piano, prepared piano, vocals, toys) and Yuko OSHIMA (drums, vocals, samplers, sound objets), plus Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ (synthesizers, virtual machines, Theremin, acoustic sounds) recorded live at Le Triton in March 2008 (Les Lilas).
Duo with Nicolas Clauss' interactive images at Theatre de l'Echangeur (Bagnolet), during the WormHoles directed by Didier Petit, has been a piece of cake !

Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ (keyboards, reed trumpet) and Nicolas CLAUSS (interactive images) have invited Étienne BRUNET (alto sax, bagpipes) and Éric ÉCHAMPARD (drums) for a totally new version of SOMNAMBULES at Le Triton (Les Lilas). Program : Jumeau Bar, White Rituals, Heritage, Les marcheurs, L'ardoise, Les dormeurs. First part of the evening, Électrofication, nine pupils of Conservatoires de musique de Pavillon-sous-Bois, Les Lilas et Romainville, commissionned by Jazz 93 to Jean-Jacques Birgé.

Établissement d'un ciel d'alternance, duet by Michel HOUELLEBECQ and Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ, recorded ten years ago, is finally out on CD GRRR 2026. Bonus track, an instrumental piece composed with Bernard VITET and a beautiful libretto (as usual) by Étienne AUGER, 12 pages, big size ! Text and handwritten introduction by poet Michel Houellebecq included. 5 articles about the cd on Birgé's blog (in French, but you may try the included Google translator) : On the album - Its budget - Story of the duo - The graphic designer's explanations - 12 unchosen covers Distributed by Orkhêstra International as the whole GRRR catalogue, you can also get it from our website (18 euros + postage).

On the website of the Allumés du Jazz, one can listen to one piece from each LP or CD of the label GRRR. This means pieces by Un Drame Musical Instantané as well as Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ's. One can also order records with a VISA card and Paypal.

Four pieces by Birgé and Un Drame Musical Instantané can also be listened to on MySpace. Choice of the month : M'enfin with Francis Gorgé, Prière de Sarajevo with Dee Dee Bridgewater and Balanescu String Quartet, and two unissued songs, 'Cause I've Got Time Only for Love and Écris-moi une chanson with Elsa (when she was 6 and 9).

Birgé has composed the music for a 3 screens film on the Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Angers directed by Valéry FAIDHERBE (Hyptique).

At Fiamp 2006 (Festival International de l'Audiovisuel et du Multimédia sur le Patrimoine), Le banquier, le maréchal et le missionnaire received the Long Feature Award ; interactive plots of the Musée du Quai Branly got the Golden Multimédi'Art Interactif ; Birgé has composed the music of the first for Jocelyne LECLERCQ (Cinémathèque Albert Kahn, Archives de la Planète) and sound design for the seconds (Riff).

Somnambules, created with Nicolas CLAUSS, has been shown as an installation at the Seoul Museum of Art during the 4th Seoul International Media Art Biennale (Media_City Seoul 2006 / from October 18th - December 10th) which theme is Dual Reality. Somnambules has also recently been shown on New Zeland TV3 and received the Coup de cœur SVM Mac.

Les Portes is now presented in English on Somnambules' site (3 videos).

The sniper, filmed by Jean-Jacques Birgé on December 17th 1993 during the Siege of Sarajevo, is on line (French version).

INSTALLATIONS Les Portes is an immersive and interactive art installation by Birgé and Nicolas Clauss (Festival NEMO, Espace Paul Ricard, April 2006). Somnambules was exhibited at the Ars Electronica Museum of the Future (Austria), at Microwave International Media Art Festival (Hong Kong), at FILE 2004 in Sao Paulo (Brazil), at MAEM 2004 in Madrid and Universidad de Huelva (Spain), at Ars Numerica in Montbeliard and Rur@art in Rouille (France), at Festival NEMO (retrospective Birgé-Clauss)… In Utrecht (Nederland), at the exhibition Soft Target. War as a Daily, First-Hand Reality, The Sniper by Jean-Jacques Birgé was a video installation shown beside Sans Soleil by Chris Marker, Notre Musique by Jean-Luc Godard, Nuit et Brouillard by Alain Resnais and The War Game by Peter Watkins !

RECORDS

Double album Les Actualités produced by Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ for Les Allumés du Jazz : 34 unissued tracks by 30 independent labels, 130 minutes on 2 CD, a 40 pages 24x20cm libretto which will turn you dizzy... Ça ira is Un Drame Musical Instantané's contribution for GRRR (Birgé, Vitet, Dechepper, Nem et Baco). Journal #14 is a special issue, dedicated to this beautiful work. Only 18 euros !

BIRGÉ has written and recorded audio scenario and dialogues of Le Chronatoscaphe, 3 CD de luxe Boxset celebrating the 25th Anniversary of label nato (incl. 1 book full of pictures and drawings, 120 pages, 24x20cm). A beautiful present (47 euros) !

Birgé is an angel on Jef Lee JOHNSON's new album, Thisness, for the reprise of a song by Serge Gainsbourg with Nathalie Richard, Helene Breschand and a string quartet conducted by Tony Hymas (hopestreet/nato).

He participates to a CD compilation, hommage to MOONDOG. Young Dynamite has been recorded with La Pâte à Son, the new music box by LeCielEstBleu. 17 other contributions (Trace Label)...

Birgé has also recorded 3 pieces for the Nouveaux Dossiers de l'Audiovisuel (INA, Feb.-March 2005), on the CD Bonus, using modules from Somnambules and LeCielEstBleu : Plomberie, Hantée and Roll Over Composer (INA).

CD+DVD In 2003, MIO RECORDS reissued a double album including the famous record Défense de by BIRGÉ GORGÉ SHIROC (1975) as a CD (+ 4 unissued bonus tracks) together with a DVD including the first film by Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ and Bernard MOLLERAT La Nuit du Phoque (1974, 41 minutes, subtitles in English, French, Japanese, Hebrew) and 6h30mn by the same trio. MIO has stopped its activities, but some albums remain available. Write us to order it ! A new page on Francis Gorgé's site, assez vu. Press.

Jean-Jacques Birgé in La Nuit du Phoque

La Guêpe, first LP by VITET under his own name (1971), has just been reissued as a CD by Gérard Terronès (Futura/Marge), with Jean-Paul Rondepierre, Jouk Minor, François Tusques, Beb Guérin, Jean Guérin, Françoise Achard, text by Francis Ponge. Bernard Vitet is working on the CD issue of LP Mehr Licht ! (1979) including an unissued duo with Birgé.

MULTIMEDIA Birgé has composed music and sounds for the site of the future Museum of Immigration (Hyptique), sound design for Petits Repères, children site of Marque Repere (SurLeToit.com), octophonic music for French Pavillion at Aïchi World Fair 2005, Japan (Dassault Systèmes). For Riff, he also composed sound design for Musée du Quai Branly in Paris, and Musée de la Vendée. Incandescence has put on line the little skate game done for Adidas a few years ago, programmation by Antoine Schmitt , sound by JJB. WI-FI Birgé is happy to design the sound of Nabaztag, the new Wi-Fi smart rabbit by Violet. Antoine Schmitt is designing his comportment, Etienne Auger (incandescence) is in charge of the website and packaging... See now the show Nabaz'mob ! TELEPHONE SonicObjects, original cellular telephone rings, under the direction of Antoine Schmitt, are recorded by 17 modern composers, among who J-J Birgé, B.Vitet, D.Petit, P.Labbé, V.Epplay, J.Montessuy, H.Sage, D.Besson, R.Cahen, L.Martinez...

INFERNAL MACHINES OR MUSIC BOXES ? La Pâte à Son is on the website of La Cité de la Musique - Espace Jeunesse and on lecielestbleu. It means Sound Dough ! La Pâte à Son is also exhibited : Centre Pompidou Children Gallery (Paris), Ars Electronica Museum of the Future (Linz, Austria), IFCA (Slovenia), OFFF Festival (Barcelona, Spain), Festival du Film d'Animation d'Annecy (France), and 4 exhibitions in Korea : Uijeongbu Digital Arts Festival, SeNef, Ten Years After 3 (Daejeon), Digital! (Samsung Tesco Gallery, Ten Years After 3, Seoul). It is a creation of lecielestbleu.com : Jean-Jacques Birgé, Frédéric Durieu, Thierry Laval, Kristine Malden. Soon a new interactive module ! And a new machine, FluxTunes...

LIVE SHOW A new version of SOMNAMBULES will be on tour with Clauss + Étienne Brunet (alto sax, ring modulator, bagpipes) and Éric Échampard (drums). Just contact us. Beginning of 2006, Birgé (music machines), Clauss (interactive images), Pascale LABBÉ (vocals) and Didier PETIT (cello) had created the first version of SOMNAMBULES, a live adaptation of Sarajevo Suite et Fin, White Vibes, La Photo, The Shower et Somnambules... Somnambules has been nominated as one of the 5 strangest sites by Yahoo! (Best of 10 Years)... Birgé wrote the sound score of Une Médée directed by Anne-Laure LIÉGEOIS (Le Festin, Montluçon). On March 4th 2006, to celebrate the issue of Un Hommage à / A tribute to Moondog, Birgé participated to a concert organized by Trace Label and Point Ephemere. Birgé (playing only on synthesizer toys !) and singer Pascale LABBÉ have been playing together at the Futura/Marge benefit concert on September 19th 2005 at the Sunset, Paris.

Nicolas Clauss, Pascale Labbé, Jean-Jacques Birgé (Photo F.Romand)

CINEMA

Jean-Jacques Birgé has composed the music and soundtrack of Françoise ROMAND's new film, Si toi aussi tu m'abandonnes, with Didier Petit on cello and Birgé on Sainte-Elisabeth pipe organs. Nicolas Clauss has created all the animations.
Birgé also composed the soundtrack of two movies by Michèle LARUE, Le fantôme du désir and La fiancée du danger, and the music of another short by Françoise Romand, Profession femme de...

LECTURES

A 1h40 video of a lecture by Birgé on sound design, at the Kawenga in Montpellier, can be watched on the site of the Sufco (University).

PRESS Articles written by Birgé in Les Nouveaux Dossiers de l'Audiovisuel (Feb.-March 2005, incl. CD), in Les Allumés du Jazz #9 (about author rights, piracy and record industry questions), in #10 (a long interview with Fred Frith), in #11 (interview with Joëlle Léandre + The art of desynchronization), in #12 (a cooking recipe called Impro Soup + a question to P.Contet, F.Cotinaud, P.Deschepper, P.Labbé, G.Le Querrec, A.Linz, J.Morières, R.Turner, F. van Hove, V.Weston, R.Wyatt, C.Zingaro, etc.), in#13 (8 pages with Archie Shepp)... #14 was about double album Les Actualités (34 unissued tracks by 30 labels belonging to Les Allumés du Jazz)... #15 is a special issue on photography... #16 #17 #18 #19 are illustrated by cartoonists. In Jazz magazine (about his meeting with Frank Zappa, about the life and rights of musicians - cover by Willem ! - and the last one, Pascale Labbé à la folie... In Muziq a new cd chronicle...

MULTIMEDIA (old news)

On LeCielEstBleu, (2 000 000 visitors, SCAM Award for Best Internet site 2001.2002, Narrowcast Content Award) Durieu and Birgé present Big Bang, Forever and PixelbyPixel, three musical modules, Free Zerpo, for Nike (choose the sixth element, PSA[128MAX Movement, in the filmstrip interface), the Zoo (Flying giraffes, Mosquito, Lucanus Cervus, Equus, Pinguins, also on the site of the Centre Pompidou), Moire, Week-end, The iMac Show, etc. Last one : La Pâte à Son.

INTERACTIVITY : SACD Interactive Creation Award 2004, Seoul Net Festival Special Prize of Jury 2003 (Korea), Videoformes New Media Creation Award in 2004 (Clermont-Ferrand), Prix ARS Electronica 2004 Net Vision / Net Excellence Honorary Mention (Austria), 1st Prize France Telecom R&D Oone (Art Rock Festival, St Brieuc) for Somnambules, an interactive, choreographic, visual and musical work in 12 scenes and their preludes, by Birgé - Clauss - Silhol.

Interactive modules by Clauss and Birgé on Flying Puppet : The Shower, Heritage, Jumeau Bar, Penelope, In the lion's mouth, Avant la nuit, Jazz, Trauma, Détournement, Ulchiro, Deadfish, Dervish Flowers, Travelling, L'étranger, Sorcière, Massacre, Chasse-croisé, Derrière le tiroir, Résurrection, Moon Tribe, Dark Matter, Bosch, Roundabout, Typed Paint, etc. Try Jean-Jacques Birgé by himself, a four hands selfportrait by Nicolas Clauss and J-J Birgé. Sudden Stories, a pianographique by Clauss and Birgé, on Jean-Luc Lamarque's site. And, of course, Somnambules. Next collaboration : interactive art installation Les Portes…

Paris Connection : essays, interviews, and links to six Parisian web.artists: Jean-Jacques Birgé, Nicolas Clauss, Frédéric Durieu, Jean-Luc Lamarque, Antoine Schmitt, and servolvalve. Produced by Jim Andrews and Nancy Paterson (Coriolisweb, Canada), Helen Thorington (Turbulence, USA), Regina Célia Pinto (Museo do Essencial e do Além Disso, Brazil) and Roberto Simanowski (Dichtung-digital.org, Berlin). Presented in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese with the help of fifteen people from seven countries.The CD-Rom Domicile d'Ange Heureux (dadamedia), with Birgé and Bernard Vitet for the music, has got the 2003 Bologna Children's Ebook Award. PC/Mac OS X.
Another dadamedia reissue (PC/Mac OS 9 & X) : ALPHABET is a generative and interactive CD-Rom for children (from 3 to 99), created by Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ, Frédéric DURIEU and Murielle LEFÈVRE, from a book by Kvéta PACOVSKA. It has been produced by NHK, realised by Dadamédia, you can also order it (only from USA) on Amazon.com. Bernard Vitet has collaborated to the musical part. ALPHABET, published in the United States (Tivola), Japan (NHK), Germany (Tivola), Nederland, France, has received 15 international prizes...

BIRGÉ works actually a lot as a composer and sound designer for CD-Roms (At the Circus with Seurat, DVD-Rom Le Louvre, 9 Cahiers Passeport, Sethi and the Crown of Egypt, AZ, Firmenich, Mr Men series, Salto & Zelia series, etc.), web sites (Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Museum of Immigration, Champagne Laurent-Perrier, BDDP@TBWA, Lyon, Adidas, Numer, Else , Determinism, Magado, etc.), flyingpuppet, LeCielEstBleu and various multimedia events. On the web we can watch Birgé at work (interview-photos-video) on Telerama.
See Birgé's full biography.

MUSIC (old news)

Order the reissue of the fisrt album of UN DRAME MUSICAL INSTANTANE, TROP D'ADRÉNALINE NUIT (cd GRRR 2024), with an unreleased bonus track, Sancta Papaverina. This great album, totally improvised, recorded in 1977, unavailable for the last 15 years, features the legendary trio, Birgé, Vitet and Gorgé.

To get GRRR Records in Japan see Locus Solus, elsewhere contact Orkhêstra or Les Allumés du Jazz.

The DVD 1+1, a natural history of sex , for which Jean-Jacques BIRGÉ has composed the music (feat. Philippe Deschepper on guitar, Yves Robert on trombone and Eric Echampard on drums), has got the grand prix Europrix 2003 in the category "Education, e-learning", the Prix Möbius Sciences and Prix Special du Jury Möbius International. The DVD (Video and Rom) is available on hyptique.net.