American Tour Project Denis Levaillant, Jean

Denis Levaillant,
Jean-Michel Goury and Yves Josset
American Tour Project
2014
Denis Levaillant, pianist, composer and writer,
and Jean-Michel Goury, saxophonist, have
developped a 15 years long collaboration.
At the moment, they want to join together and make
a unique proposal of master classes and concert.
They will be joined by the pianist Yves Josset.
A New French Music
Master classes - Concert
CONCERT
All works of Denis Levaillant,
except for the Ravel’s one.
Film: La Petite danseuse de Degas, 4’30, beginning of the Second Act, Le Miroir, for saxophone
and orchestra, Paris National Opera Orchestra, Jean-Michel Goury, tenor saxophone.
Manhattan Rhapsody, for saxophone tenor and piano, 12’, Jean-Michel Goury and Yves Josset.
Etudes Africaines for piano : au balafon, au djembé, the composer, Denis Levaillant, on the piano.
Music is the film, reeds quartet , 6’, the alto sax part performed live with a sound system brodcasting.
Maurice Ravel, Les contes de Ma mère l’Oye, 6’, piano four hands by Denis Levaillant and Yves
Josset
Film :
Les accords secrets du Capitaine
Nemo, for 12 saxophones, excerpt
with a video creation by Nelson
Castro.
Le Fakir, 8’, for saxophone soprano
and piano, Jean-Michel Goury and
Yves Josset.
Denis Levaillant - Masterclass
Attn: Students in composition, music for films,
piano, aesthetics, and all instruments.
The class is organized in 5 parts:
1/Film: A Composer in the heart of the
creation, a portrait of Denis Levaillant by JeanMarie David (for the French Television), 26’.
2/Reading, Performing, Writing. The relation
between improvisation, performance and
composition. Examples: piano works, ImagesEtudes. How all theses different practices of
music improve the musicality.
3/How to manage the relationship between
the composer and the performer. Examples:
works for clarinet, Hudson River, Easy-Uneasy.
4/A New French Music: what does that mean?
The new colours of the music, the influence of
jazz and the French tradition. A new melodic
and harmonic research. Example: Manhattan
Rhapsody.
5/Acoustic/Electric: the new cinematic qualities of today’s music. Examples: Drama Symphony,
Music Is The Film, Dark, The Fear Factory. How a concert piece can be synchronizated in a feature
film or a documentary.
Jean-Michel Goury - Masterclass : saxophonists, pianists.
Levaillant’s music for saxophone: Manhattan Rhapsody, Le fakir, Figures, Music is the film,
Attractions, Les accords secrets du Capitaine Nemo.
Allow me to present you (just the once will not hurt) a piece, «Manhattan Rhapsody» for saxophone
tenor and piano, of Denis LEVAILLANT, serious and representative French composer of the current
music, among the brightest which we know; piece which although written in a traditional technic
language (and at once approachable for the public) is idiomatic of the instrument. It is the
success, typically «French» that I am happy to recommend you, quality pieces for tenor not being
numerous…
Jean-Marie Londeix
Denis LEVAILLANT
By David Sanson
French composer and pianist Denis Levaillant is one of today’s major musical talents. Since 1973
he has managed to develop a personal, highly varied oeuvre, allying the rhythmic energy of jazz
and popular musics to a new orchestral colour in the French tradition, appealing to all audiences.
He approached music by studying classical piano, demonstrating precocious gifts. At the same
time, he distinguished himself brilliantly in general studies at the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand
and the Sorbonne in Paris, where he earned a Masters in philosophy in 1974. In 1983, Denis
Levaillant was awarded a fellowship to the Villa Medici in Rome.
Initially making a name for himself with the general public in the 1970s as a performer and topnotch improviser (his book L’Improvisation musicale, published in 1980, has become a reference
on the subject). In the 1980s, he was one of the pioneers in musical theatre in France, and the
originality of his opera O.P.A. Mia (My Tender Bid), with sets by Enki Bilal and premiered in 1990 at
the Avignon Festival and the Opéra-Comique in Paris, made a strong impression.
In the following decade, he devoted most of his creative efforts to symphonic writing. His ballet,
La Petite danseuse, commissioned by the Paris Opera, met with great success at the Paris Opera in
2003 and has been revived in 2005 and 2010.
Winner, in particular, of the RAI Prize at the Italia Prize in 1988, Denis Levaillant has had most of
his recorded catalogue regularly synchronised in cinema and television the world over.
Jean-Michel GOURY and Yves JOSSET
The Duo Jean-Michel GOURY-Yves JOSSET was created in 1985 and has made it its task to create and
promote contemporary music for saxophone and piano in collaboration with today’s composers.
It is an original feature of this duo of French musicians to offer the public several programmes
ranging from «classical concerts» to shows or «café littéraire» type.
Many composers have dedicated their works to them : Levaillant, Chassain, Grouvel, Lauba, Rolin,
Rossé, Calosema, Savouret, Jakuboswki, Gubler, Minamikawa...This Duet has defended their
musics through numerous recordings and concerts thoughout Europe.
Since many years, Goury and Josset created and organized saxophone and piano courses,
workshops, seminars, for the practice of today’s music. They have made many tours in USA and
Canada Universities since 1996: Minneapolis, Pittsburg, Montreal, Edmonton, Bowling Green,
Rochester, Kansas, Michigan, Northwestern, Chicago, etc., and in over the world (Israel, Japon,
Germany…)
In short, the Duo Goury-Josset is more than a simple partnership of artists. In facts, both of
them are enterprising modern men, with a capacity for innovating and opening to all forms of
expressions.
SOME REVIEWS ABOUT DENIS LEVAILLANT’S WORKS
THE COMPOSER
ECHO DE NARCISSE, concerto for piano and orchestra
A fine review by Agnès Jourdain on the ‘Piano Bleu’ Website
‘It is the first CD that will interest piano fans more particularly since it includes, first of all, a piano concerto,
Echo de Narcisse, lasting some thirty minutes, and with the composer himself, Denis Levaillant, at the
piano. Recorded in 1998, this is music that is quite compelling and expressive. Everyone will dream
whatever he likes throughout this concerto whose three movements open onto quite different universes.
And as often in concertos in three movements, the second is slow, but this is not always the case: it is
extremely beautiful [...] and would deserve to be played as much as Ravel’s Concerto in G nowadays... And
of course, it is a concerto to be listened to in its entirety so as to better savour its full dramaturgy and share
this moment of intense emotion.’ January 2013
LA PETITE DANSEUSE
Ballet, Paris Opera, 2003, 2005, 2010
“Denis Levaillant’s score also deserves much praise. Colorful and rhythmically rich (jazz is the most
perceptible influence) throughout the evening, it is a perfectly effective support for what is seen on stage.
The Paris Opera Orchestra played this lovely, difficult score with fantastic spirit, a key element in this
production which is indeed worthy of the house that gave birth to it.”
Olivier Brunel, Le quotidien du Médecin, May 2003
“At the Palais Garnier, the Paris National Opera Ballet is reviving, until 30 December, La Petite Danseuse
de Degas, an in-house production premiered in April 2003 and which seems destined to a long life so
finely tuned is it, with its classical craftsmanship. Conducted by the American Paul Connelly, the Orchestre
Colonne, very much solicited (numerous solo interventions), does honor to the score by Denis Levaillant,
who has composed varied, accessible music without renouncing a contemporary syntax here and there
(uneven rhythmic patterns, harmonic pointillism…).” Agence France Presse, December 2005
Tutti Ovation 10/10 (Exceptional works), July 2011
‘The music of the ballet was commissioned by the Paris Opera from composer Denis Levaillant. Very rich, it
calls for a luxuriant orchestra and plays on quite beautiful colours. The handling of timbres is noteworthy,
and the dynamic, like the variations in rhythms and tonal or atonal colours, ideally suits the choreographic
expression. From the very first bars, it becomes obvious that Patrice Bart has succeeded in using the musical
structure naturally to express himself. Beginning with the ballet’s short Prologue, one will appreciate the
theatricality of the approach and the clarity of writing..’
Philippe Banel-Tutti-magazine.fr-July 2011
Recording of the month, June, Recording of the year, MusicWeb International, December 2011
« When the choreographer of La Petite Danseuse de Degas heard Denis Levaillant’s Piano Concerto, he
was so impressed that he not only contracted Levaillant to write the music for his ballet but also used
the music of the Concerto’s Andante in the ballet. Denis Levaillant’s interesting mix of tonal and atonal
music - sometimes gleaming, diamond-hard and often favouring batteries of percussion, particularly
xylophone and tubular bells - spans many styles from the baroque to modernism and jazzy figures via Late
Romanticism and Impressionism. An inspired and visually ravishing creation. This ballet deserves to go
from success to success. »
Ian Lace-Musicweb-international.com-Juin 2011
Unlike some recent modern ballets, La Petite Danseuse is aided by an impressionistic score in the styles of
Ravel and Satie, peppered with surrealistic phrases, and mated with gorgeous choreography. »
Lawrence Devoe – Blu-rayDefinition.com, June 2011
‘Denis Levaillant’s music colours and acts without discontinuity, arranging superb passages of pure,
dreamlike fantasising, such as the two duos of the prima ballerina and the dancing master, which take
place before the innocent, awe-struck gaze of Marie [...] who imagines herself as an adulated ballerina.’
Alban Deags- Classiquenews.com-Juin 2011
« Denis Levaillant’s score is quasi-minimalist, but not in the more typical Philip Glass or John Adams way.
Levaillant takes phrases longer than the typical Glass motive and then subtly permutates them through
slowly undulating harmonic changes. The score is largely string driven, with occasional flashes of percussive
fury, and as strange as this may sound, I personally found it very redolent of some of jazz orchestrator
and composer Claus Ogerman’s orchestral pieces with Michael Brecker, filtered through a sort of quasiRavelian intelligence. This is often very pretty, even ravishing, music (…).This is not bombastic music, and is
really rather meditative much of the time, but for those with the patience to listen into the music, there’s
a lot of really gorgeous stuff going on here which the DTS track supports beautifully. »
Jeffrey Kauffman, Blu-ray.com, June 11, 2011
« Easily the best work here and the biggest surprise, La Petite Danseuse de Degas is an exceptional and
exceptionally powerful ballet that might now be my favorite ballet Blu-ray next to the Criterion Collection
release of Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger’s The Red Shoes. If I were introducing the art form to
someone, I would show them this disc. »
Nicolas Sheffo- Fulvue Drive-in, June 2011
L’OPÉRA DE LA LUNE
Radio-France, Paris, 2006, 2008
“While a concert accordion begins and ends the score—representing Michel Morin, just as his imaginary
daddy is a soprano saxophone, his mummy a clarinet, etc.—, we find ourselves with an orchestra à la
française in which the woodwinds are traditionally in pairs, full of color and clarity.”
Laurent Bergnach, Anaclase.com, 6 April 2006
“The scope of Denis Levaillant’s composition is surprising. It is much more than a sound illustration—it is a
veritable imaginary cinema, in turn dreamlike, dancing, harsh, a score of considerable lyricism integrated
into a modern epic. It gives the spectator time to dream, to go to the moon. An incarnation of French art,
this work is an unmitigated pleasure.”
Jean-Christophe Le Toquin, Resmusica, December 2008
“The reading of Jacques Prévert’s magical work is accompanied by music composed by Denis Levaillant,
and we cannot but fall under the charm of his fine freedom in relation to fads of the time and orchestral
writing in tune with the lunar atmosphere of the tale.”
Journal des Instituteurs, March 2009
“This story by Prévert is a great classic. In turn poetic, sad and zany, the tale takes us into another world.
Denis Levaillant’s music adds further emotion, with the whole range of feelings and atmospheres, and is
masterfully performed by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France.”
Cristina Agosti-Gherban, ADEM, December 2008
“Denis Levaillant’s majestic music, played by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, is a gift to
this strange, moving text recited by actor Jacques Bonaffé, relating the lunar reveries of Michel Morin.”
Marie-Agnès Boquien, Chorus, December 2008
THE PIANIST
“First of all, the evidence: Denis Levaillant is a creator. With a good old piano, he draws out things that
are personal to him while firmly fixing them within a story, within a continuity, with an art of possession,
unheard-of sensuality and an extraordinary pianistic gesture.
”Denis Levaillant caresses the piano, curling up in its sonorities, in superb undulations or gentle aggressions.
“Possession of the music. Self-possession and possession of others. The possession of creation. The art of
possession.”
Christian Goubault, Paris Normandie, 22 January 1989
“Levaillant plays the piano like Levaillant and no one else.”
Philippe Conrath, Libération, January 1979
“In this kind of mad, audacious recital, Denis Levaillant added to a dumbfounding mastery of the piano a
number of truly creative ideas as to the role that a so-called ‘accompaniment pianist’ can take.” Eric Vogel, La Tribune de Genève, 18 January 1981
“Thanks to technique that is remarkably adapted to performing Franz Liszt, Denis Levaillant ‘transposed’,
through the accompaniment of songs or in improvisations, the diverse landscapes that we were discovering.
These improvisations, veritable results of the composer’s harmonic daring, were perfectly in keeping with
the authentic pieces.”
Pierre Reynaud, Le Courrier Picard, 17 May 1982
“Levaillant manages to unveil the essence of things. He neither parodies nor paraphrases. […] His strength
is to maintain a distance from the subject. Thus, playing Duke Ellington with a touch à la Maurizio Pollini
does not fail to surprise.”
Paul Goupil, Le Monde la Musique, December 1984
“A superb disc. Levaillant, who really plays the piano, plays Debussy, Monk, Bley, Cecil Taylor, Jarrett,
Samson François, Glenn Gould et al. And this is music that thinks. What’s more, it’s beautiful…”
Michel Thion, Révolution, December 1984
“The pianist, one of the most interesting younger French composers, emerges as a solo player of
considerable ability, always understated and economical, never less than acute in his judgment of the
effective moment and phrase.”
Brian Morton, Wire, September 1985
“This record especially reveals the strength of Levaillant’s playing. He is a well-rounded decidedly modern
pianist with a flair for cleanly articulated two-handed invention.”
Milo Fine, Cadence, December 1985.