DER VERBOTEN
Frantz Loriot viola
Antoine Chessex tenor saxophone
Cédric Piromalli prepared piano
Christian Wolfarth percussions
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Der Verboten (with a deliberate linguistic error in the good Dadaist sense) consists of the following musicians: Frantz Loriot (viola), Antoine Chessex (tenor saxophone), Christian Wolfarth (percussions) and Cédric Piromalli (piano).
The music of Der Verboten oscillates between improvised music, contemporary jazz and experimental acoustic music. During their collaboration, the four musicians have developed a highly differentiated sound language. Although the quartet works conceptually and very structured, the art of improvisation remains central to the ensemble, so that the music of Der Verboten can be experienced again and again in real time. The focus lies in the exploration of collective timbres and unique structures. In concrete terms, dense textures are created in which each individual instrument coexists and functions as part of the whole.
The music of Der Verboten is fluid and meanders like a stream. The four musicians create highly homogeneous sound structures, which are constantly changing without ever losing sight of each other or their ears. The music of the quartet offers a challenging journey that challenges the sonic imagination of the listener and brings a poetic experience in the art of improvisation.
Der Verboten was originally the third version of the "Treffpunkt" project, a mobile quartet formed around the fixed pair of French violist Frantz Loriot and pianist Cédric Piromalli, which became a proper group after a few years playing and traveling together.
The group was formed during a creation residency offered to Frantz Loriot by the Météo Mulhouse festival in France (2016 edition). The final work concretised in a half improvised / half composed piece called "Der dritte Treffpunkt" (the third meeting point) released on clean feed, in September 2017.
Der dritte Treffpunkt
The first strong idea here is to open and enlarge the sonic space, breaking the usual frontal relation between the performers and the audience, between the scenic space and the public.
In a concentric disposition, the quartet is placed in the middle of the room, surrounded by the audience which is itself surrounded by a diffusion system comprising of several speakers.
The passage from acoustic to amplified is a second axis of the work. Indeed, in most of the music, the choice of playing with or without amplification is linked to either a specific aesthetic or for the sake of the volume balance between the different instruments. But the possibility of the passage between acoustic and amplified as such is rarely used as musical raw material.
For Der Verboten, the amplification, controlled by the musicians in real time, is a process, which changes the quality of the sound but also the sonic space. The width, the contrasts and dynamics are modified in a musical and dramaturgical relation to the diffusion system.
Through the research of these specific fields, Der Verboten proposes a music made of colours and sensations; a sort of big sonic fresco conceived like a passage inside which the performers and the audience would travel next to each other.
