-Miroirs Déformants (12' - 1988, rev. 1994), for oboe and 4 track tape

       - dedicated to Drake Mabry.

      -premiere by Drake Mabry at ASCA, Paris, in May 1988

      - • CD INA-GRM "Nicolas Vérin - 4 pièces pour solistes et sons fixés"

Load an excerpt ( mp3) by Pilar Fontalba  :     Miroirs Déformants (extr.)

or in Real Audio format  :     Miroirs Déformants (extr.)

Miroirs déformants ("fun house mirrors") is based on reflections on several plans : instrument and tape, vertical and horizontal, close and distant, noise and pitch, and within the structure of the piece. The oboe part makes use of many extended techniques, for which the collaboration of Drake Mabry was crucial. I tried to integrate them in the very language of the piece, blending them with the electronic transformations. The tape was realized while I was working in Jean-Claude Eloy's Centre d'Informatique Appliquée à la Musique et à l'Image in Rueil-Malmaison, near Paris. It uses many resources from this short-lived center : Sun computers running CARL software ; the SYTER system (computer music software and hardware developed by the Groupe de Recherche Musicale, especially destined for sound processing) ; traditional analog studio techniques, including 24 track recording and automated mixing. The sounds on the tape emanate mostly from the oboe (recordings of Drake Mabry, using CIAMI's studios and unfinished auditorium, that had a particularly beautiful reverb) and also from saxophones, percussion instruments (zarb), as well as synthesis (substractive and FM).

Thanks to Jean-Claude Eloy, Francois Laferrière, Richard Pennant and Bruno Souchaud.

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