for siblings
practice-based artistic research by Lucie Nezri
General introduction
For her extended research at LOOS, Lucie Nezri composed two pieces: for siblings (2023–4) and for kali (2024). The two pieces were inspired by preexisting heterophonic music textures of North African Andalusian music traditions and written thanks to algorithmic interpretations of these pieces. Lucie mostly worked with local musicians, such as Reinier van Houdt, Nirantar Yakthumba, Joel Gester Suárez, and Clara de Asís, to rehearse, present, and/or record these pieces. She remained in continuous contact with Michael Winter as an artistic collaborator, discussing programming and musical matters in the field of computational analysis of preexisting pieces of music or algorithmic composition.
more detail on different projects developed at LOOS
for siblings (2023)
— see/listen to files 'forSiblings_piano_excerpt' and 'forSiblings_SoundArtFestival_recording.mp3' —
for siblings (tempered) is the first outcome of Lucie Nezri's research at LOOS revolving around Maghrebin Andalusian classical music, specifically from Morocco and Algeria, where her father's family originates. Lucie's initial wish for this research was to loosely integrate tuning systems, modes, as well as melodic and rhythmic patterns of Maghrebin-Andalusian music into her own practice, which is already grounded in rational tuning, algorithmic/probabilistic methods of composition, and open-form scores. Her standpoint stems from a deeply personal yet rootless and rather abstract perspective. As a result, and necessarily, the piece for siblings (tempered) ended up being distant from its original source of inspiration.
The piece now exists in several versions: for solo piano, for guitar/piano, for two guitars, and for piano and two guitars. Over the months, Lucie realized she tends to work with different 'versions' of the same work, finding this process very fulfilling. Thanks to Studio LOOS, she was able to make some recordings of the piece with Reinier van Houdt, which will be published as a CD in 2025.
Thanks to Studio LOOS, the piece was also presented for the first time during the International Sound Art Festival in 2023, which was an incredibly special evening for Lucie.
concert in collaboration with Discreet Editions and Clara de Asís
— see file 'concert_Discreet.mp4' —
On Sunday, May 19, 2024, Lucie Nezri and Clara de Asís organized and curated a concert at Studio LOOS, which remains one of the highlights of 2024 for Lucie.
The first part of the concert featured Clara de Asís's piece Pillar of Salt (2023) (Dutch premiere). Pillar of Salt is a composition for idiophones, bells, and electronics. From an audible account on ambiguity, it explores the potentiality of microtonal intervals, spectral blending, and timbral affinity to articulate different levels of synergy, reciprocity, and confusion between acoustic and electronic material in the physical and the psychoacoustic space. The structure of the piece unfolds from a simple pattern up to accidental states with different levels of contingency. It juxtaposes compositional precision to systemic randomness.
The second part of the concert featured three gentle algorithmic pieces, performed by Clara de Asís on the guitar and Lucie Nezri on the piano:
ida for amy (2017) by Michael Winter (Dutch premiere), for piano—a birthday piece for Amy Beal, inspired by her favorite song: "Ida Lupino" by Carla Bley.
en abyme (2015) by Melaine Dalibert, for piano—based on a potentially indefinite fractal-like process, the composition is based on paradoxical movements: ascending arpeggios producing a tiling of descending lines.
for siblings (tempered) (2023) by Lucie Nezri, for piano and guitar.
The evening was very well attended and filled with LOOS's distinctive warm and relaxed atmosphere. People were very pleased by the concert, and Lucie and Clara were as well.
for kali (2024)
— see/listen to files 'forKali_mp4', 'forKali_excerpt.mp3', 'forKali_score_excerpt' —
for kali is a piece commissioned by Kali Ensemble for piano(s), zither, harmonium, clarinet, baroque flute, violin, and/or cello. The cycle is inspired, from a distance, by the vast repertoire of Arab-Andalusī nūbat, particularly their modes and slower, semi-improvised sections. The pieces do not attempt to recreate this genre, especially its refined mastery of modulation. Instead, the pieces for kali display a kind of 'hollowness'—emptying the substance of these music traditions and eventually finding something that has everything but mostly nothing to do with them.
Part of the compositional process consists of analyzing and rearranging the individual modes of traditional nūbat using customized algorithms on SuperCollider, retuning and recontextualizing them in the framework of rational tuning systems. More specifically, the accidentals of the nūbat travel between three poles of rational tunings, i.e., three mixed septimal colors: 7-5, 7-11, and 7-19. Following Clarence Barlow's harmonicity formula, a second stage of the composition involves computing the harmonicity of the intervals made between each degree of the scale of a nūba in relation to its first degree. These harmonicity values are then used as probability weights to generate melodic sequences through stochastic processes.
The purpose of unmeasured notation is to reintroduce in Lucie's pieces the heterophonic texture and flexible unison found in the preludes opening a traditional nūba. It also balances a collective playfulness and an individual agency for each performer.
Thanks to Studio LOOS, a first (unexpected) version of the piece for two keyboards/pianos is currently being rehearsed by two members of Kali, Joel Gester Suárez and Nirantar Yakthumba. A second version for the entire ensemble already exists and will see the light of day in 2025. A potential version for electronics (microtonal keyboards) might also emerge from this cycle of pieces. Lucie hopes to present the piece at LOOS in 2025 and is thankful to have had access to two pianos for rehearsing the piece.