The ultimate edition of percussionist Lê Quan Ninh's famous text, which explores, in the form of an ABC, the singular experience of improvising and free improvisation.
The initial fragments, written about twenty years ago, provide a valuable testimony to the connections, differences, and questions of percussionist Lê Quan Ninh. The book is accompanied by a CD, Song Lang, a solo recorded in March 2024 at the Sound (Dis)obedience Festival in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
"It is in 2010 that I discover Lê Quan Ninh's ABC during an improvisation course. The book was simply placed on the floor. We were invited to freely consult and browse the materials over the days, as one would do in a second hand shop.
I liked the idea that you can begin this book at any page. This new freedom chimed with what I was discovering in free improvisation: an almost childlike joy of play, a renewed relationship with the instrument, the space and the other musicians.
This experience seemed profoundly unique to me. As time went on, this book accompanied me, evolving with me.
The precision of the reflexions that Lê Quan Ninh shares in this work remind me of the meticulous attention with which this artistartisan of sound sets out his tools in a semi-circle around him before a concert. Each fragment of thought, each nuance is an essential piece of his instrument and of his spirit.
We realize, in reading, that the instant created by improvisation is, in reality, perpetual. We are only slipping into a flux which existed well before us and which will continue well after our passage, revealing a true way of being in the world."
Emilie Škrijelj
New bilingual, revised and expanded edition of the book Improviser librement. Abécédaire d'une expérience published by Mômeludies in 2010 and 2014.
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.
