An improvised encounter between the two musicians (Jean-Luc Guionnet, alto saxophone / Lê Quan Ninh, percussion): five pieces of different lengths, alternating long periods of subtle restraint with moments of incredible intensity.
Before recording for this CD, Jean-Luc Guionnet and Lê Quan Ninh had only improvised together for a few minutes during an evening organized in December 2014 at Instants Chavirés (Montreuil) by
Revue & Corrigée magazine to celebrate its 30th anniversary. Despite being of the same generation, working in more or less the same artistic fields and having crossed paths and appreciated each other on numerous occasions, they had never bothered to imagine a collaboration. What's more, the recording project took shape around a misunderstanding—which, incidentally, gave the work its title: their dads had never met, even though Lê Quan Ninh thought they had for some time. It's interesting to set this dissensus to music, to renounce a fusional encounter but rather to stand at a distance, to coexist much more than to interact.
Born 1966 in Lyon, Jean-Luc Guionnet is a French saxophonist and organist, a visual artist, a performer, and an electroacoustic composer. Jean-Luc Guionnet studied visual arts and electroacoustic music with Christine Groult, Michel Zbar and Iannis Xénakis. A multi-instrumentalist (alto & soprano saxophone, organ, piano), he has improvised and experimented in the field of electroacoustic music with
Eric La Casa, Eric Cordier,
Pascal Battus, Edward Perraud, Frédéric Blondy,
Sophie Agnel, André Almuro,
Olivier Benoit, with the groups Schams, Synapses, Calx, Phéromones and Hubbub. Passing from a very physical approach of the play, of the breath, to a work of sound spatialization, through complex sound devices.
Classically trained, the percussionist Lê Quan Ninh (born 1961 in Paris) has been active since the early 1980s in the field of contemporary music interpretation and free improvisation.
He was one of the founding members of the Quatuor Hêlios, a percussion ensemble from 1986 to 2012 (creations by Jean-Pierre Drouet, George E. Lewis, Kaija Saariaho,
Jean-Christophe Feldhandler, Jean-Louis Charpille, Daniel Koskowitz, Vinko Globokar, Giorgio Battistelli, Chrichan Larson, Luc Therminarias, Georges Aperghis, etc.). With cellist Martine Altenburger, he founded in 2006 the ensemble]h[iatus, a contemporary music ensemble whose members are both performers and improvisers (creations by Vinko Globokar, Peter Jakober, Steffen Krebber, Jennifer Walshe,
Anthony Pateras, Jürg Frey, etc.)
Involved in many collectives and associations, and in the programming of festivals, he also has a privileged relationship with dance (Franck Beaubois, Marie Cambois, Clara Cornil, Olivia Grandville, Masaki Iwana, Patricia Kuypers, Fine Kwiatkowski, Yukiko Nakamura, Michel Raji, Kirstie Simson, Moeno Wakamatsu...).
As an improviser, he has been involved in several regular formations with artists such as
Daunik Lazro,
Michel Doneda,
Beñat Achiary, Dominique Regef, Paul Rogers, Frédéric Blondy, Peter Kowald...) and has met more occasionally with a great number of others (
Thomas Ankersmit,
Pascal Battus,
Benjamin Bondonneau,
Fabrice Charles,
Xavier Charles,
Audrey Chen,
David Chiesa,
Werner Dafeldecker,
Axel Dörner,
Jacques Demierre,
Werner Durand,
Max Eastley,
Jean-Yves Evrard,
Christian Fennesz,
Fred Frith,
Bertrand Gauguet,
Jean-Luc Guionnet,
Keiji Haino,
Géraldine Keller,
Didier Lasserre,
Joëlle Léandre,
Lionel Marchetti,
Christian Marclay,
Bérangère Maximin,
Jean-Marc Montera,
Andy Moor,
Marc Namblard,
Jérôme Noetinger,
Jim O'Rourke,
Evan Parker,
Claude Parle,
Serge Pey,
Lee Ranaldo,
Carole Rieussec,
John Russell,
Frederic Rzewski,
John Tilbury,
Roger Turner,
Fred Van Hove,
Mathieu Werchowski,
Christine Wodrascka, etc.).
In 2010, he published
Improviser librement – Abécédaire d'une expérience (Mômeludies), which has been translated into English and is available from Publication Studio.
