Le sel de la terre

Patrick Giguère, musician, composer
instrumentation : flute, clarinet, vibraphone, piano, violin, cello

duration : 12'

year of composition : 2015

about :

Le sel de la terre was written for Thin Edge New Music Collective and Paramirabo’s Raging against the machine Canadian Tour. My understanding of the «machine» in this context is the consumer-oriented society in which we live. With the help of publicity, mass culture, entertainment as well as traditional and social medias, «the machine» influences our lives by setting standards for success, happiness, body image, etc. By doing so, by pushing us to play pre-determined roles, like gears in a mechanism, it ensures its continuation. However, some people like activists, artists, craftsmen, community workers, organic farmers are raging against the machine by choosing to put their values, their passion and their sense of community in front of money, fame and entertainment. The writer Samuel Archibald, in his essay Le sel de la terre, calls these people «le sel de la terre», and it is to them that I want to pay tribute. With this work, I tried to bring into existence, for a few minutes, a world without the pressure of the machine where we could explore different ways of being together, in this case of playing together. A diversity of relationships arise through the piece, thanks to varying degrees of independence and inter-reliance. The space given to the performers to express their individuality and personality does not jeopardize the musical result, but makes it richer, deeper and worthwhile. Isn’t this what we wish for ourselves ?



multimedia


event






get the score
© 2023, Patrick Giguère, Copyright - Contact
- Canadian Music Center, for score