HYPER
MATIÈRE
concert
of
HYPER DUO
(Switzerland)
Gilles Grimaître
Piano
Julien Mégroz
PERCUSSIONS
(©
Raphaël Languillat)
HANT for resonating bodies (2018)
*
[commissioned by HYPER DUO]
Grégoire Lorieux (b. 1976, France):
Brakhage Miniature
for piano and percussionist
playing in a piano (2010) *
Icaco caído for piano and percussion (2006)
*
traces
that time leaves on built form for
piano and percussion (2012) *
Doxa for prepared piano and
prepared vibraphone (2012–14) *
__________
* Bulgarian premiere
This concert has been made possible
thanks to the generous support of:
* * *
HYPER DUO is
a Swiss ensemble founded by pianist Gilles Grimaître and percussionist Julien
Mégroz. Both from French-speaking Switzerland, the two met during the
prestigious Lucerne Festival in 2012. With a shared passion for adventurous
repertoire and the presentation of new works, the two have regularly performed
together in Switzerland and abroad. Over time, they came to focus not only on
the rich and ever-expanding body of repertoire which exists for piano and percussion,
but also to offer a new approach to the traditional concert format, notably by
prioritising staging and dramaturgy. Always searching for original programmes
which blur the boundaries between music and performance art, the duo represents
a collective exploration of sound, space and affect.
www.hyperduo.ch
(©
Raphaël Languillat)
Gilles Grimaître (b. 1988) studied the piano at the Bern University of
the Arts with Prof. Pierre Sublet where he received his Master in
Performance diploma with distinction. He also studied the organ with Pascale
Van Coppenolle and composition with Xavier Dayer. He has taken from lessons
from renowned pianists such as Michel Dalberto, Nicolas Hodges, Florence
Millet, Ueli Wiget, Hermann Kretzschmar and Hidéki Nagano. He was scholarship
holder at the International Ensemble Modern Academy in Frankfurt am Main for
the academic year 2013–14.
He won the first prize at the 2013 Concours Nicati competition for contemporary
music and has received scholarships from the André-François Marescotti
Foundation, the Irène Dénéréaz Foundation and the Gabriele De Agostini
Foundation.
Very active in the contemporary music field,
Gilles Grimaître has collaborated closely with composers such as Stefano
Gervasoni, Franck Bedrossian, Thomas Kessler, Jürg Wyttenbach and premiered
numerous works, some piano solo pieces having been written especially for him.
He performs regularly as a soloist, chamber musician and with ensembles and orchestras
such as Ensemble Contrechamps, Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (NEC), Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Proton, Tonhalle-Orchester (Zürich) and Bochumer
Symphoniker.
In 2012, he took part in the Lucerne Festival
Academy Orchestra, playing amongst others the piano solo part in Charles Ives’s
Symphony No. 4 conducted by Péter Eövtös. Since then, he has performed in many
festivals such as the DAVOS FESTIVAL – young artists in concert (Switzerland),
Thailand International Composition Festival, Tzlil Meudcan (Israel), Musikprotokoll
(Austria), Ruhrtriennale (Germany), ManiFeste (France), ppIANISSIMO (Bulgaria), Slowind
(Slovenia), SONEMUS (Bosnia and
Herzegovina).
Gilles Grimaître is a member of Collegium Novum Zürich and founding
member of the Ensemble Lemniscate, HYPER DUO with percussionist Julien
Mégroz and the duo Orion with cellist
Elsa Dorbath.
He specialises also in accompanying singers, working
often as an opera accompanist. He is also an active free improviser and plays
in the experimental band [bleu].
www.gillesgrimaitre.com
(©
Raphaël Languillat)
Julien Mégroz (b. 1986) is a percussionist, composer, improviser and
performer, specialised in experimental and new music.
He began playing percussion and drums in 1995.
He studied jazz vibraphone with Philippe Cornaz and classical percussion with
Thierry Besançon. A student in the class of Stéphane Borel at the University of
Music in Lausanne, he received in 2008 the first prize in marimba at the National
Music Competition in Riddes (Switzerland). He obtained a Bachelor in Arts in
2009 and went on to the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen, where he
studied with Gert Mortensen, Johan Bridger and Morten Friis from famous Safri Duo. Back in Lausanne in 2011, he
obtained a Master in Performance with unanimous congratulations from the jury.
He then studied two year at the High School of Music in Basel and obtained in
2013 a Master in Specialised Performance: New Music, where he studied with
Christian Dierstein, Mike Svoboda, Marcus Weiss, Jürg Henneberger and Matthias
Würsch. In 2013–14, in the frame of a Certificate of Advanced Studies, he
studied free improvisation with Alfred Zimmerlin and Fred Frith.
He received prices by the foundations Knechtli
and Nicati-de Luz (2012), Irène Dénéréaz (2012 and 2013), as well as the Régionyon culture prize of the region of
Nyon (Switzerland).
Julien Mégroz has given solo and chamber music
concerts in Switzerland, Europe and South America. He regularly collaborates
with different Swiss ensembles and participates in international festivals. He
is an active member of the ensembles We
Spoke, Soyuz 21, Collegium Novum Zürich, 4tet Too hot to hoot?, the HYPER DUO together with pianist Gilles
Grimaître and the music-theatre group La
compagnie du bouc.
He composes theatre music pieces and conceptual
music for percussion and chamber music ensembles. His music has already been performed
in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, France and Peru. In 2013, he created the Association for Schlag, which manages
his own projects. In 2014, he released his first solo record Natur/Maschine with six pieces for solo
percussion written by Swiss composers.
www.julienmegroz.ch