http://vimeo.com/4163955

This is a preview of a DVD portrait of synth pioneer Eliane Radique.

Summary:

Her life journey has been remarkable. At the end of the fifties, she studied in Paris with musique concrète pioneers Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, whom she also assisted, notably for the premiere of L’Apocalypse de Jean. During the sixties she began composing with primitive electronics (feedback and asynchronous tape loops), but found little recognition for her research in France.

In New York in the early seventies, she found understanding and emulation, exploring emerging minimalism with James Tenney, Charlemagne Palestine, Phillip Glass, John Gibson, and Steve Reich. Her absolute allegiance to electronic sounds began during this period. Since then she has composed on the best synthesizers of the time: Buchla, Moog, Serge, and then ARP, which would become her fetish instrument. She collaborated with Robert Ashley, who sang on Les Chants de Milarepa. She has composed about two dozen works, which she has presented and continues to present at numerous prestigious venues and festivals in the United States and Europe.

In 2004, upon Kasper Toeplitz´s request, she started instrumental compositions for one or more performers, with whom she works in a close collaboration during the compositional process. This work gets quickly focused on pure acoustic sounds, in an incredibly delicate timbral way, which extends, without aesthetic rupture, her electronic work. Notably between 2004 and 2009, she completed a cycle in three parts “Naldjorlak”, for Charles Curtis on cello, Carol Robinson and Bruno Martinez on basset horns. She has now stopped her electronic work.

Emmanuel Holterbach
(Translation Leslie Stuck)