Intimes exubérances is the culmination of a partnership between celebrated Montréal-based composer Patrick Giguère and Cheryl Duvall, a renowned pianist-interpreter based in Toronto. It is album-length work from Giguère, and his first substantial piece for solo piano. The creative process behind the work involved a great deal of improvisation and direct contact with the piano, Giguère’s primary instrument, both of which impart the piece's singular feel. The form that unfolds throughout its almost one-hour duration is at once volatile and grounded, its restlessness tempered by a patient, almost meditative way of dispersing material. Giguère's extemporaization may have ultimately been formalized, but the resultant work carries an underlying momentum of spontaneity as well as the idiosyncratic expressiveness that characterizes improvisation. The music spans dim, spacious murmurs to explosive virtuosity but articulates these sizeable shifts in a manner that maintains mesmeric cohesiveness. The piece's organic structure is also a product of the unique collaborative dynamic he cultivated with Duvall. Many parameters of the piece are given over to the pianist rather than being rigorously written out in the score. As such, its improvisatory impetus lives on in the performance with dynamics, tempi, and even certain rhythmic elements being subject to Duvall's input. - Nick Storring

multimedia

event

2024-05-16

Intimes exubérances - album launch

2023-06-08

Intimes exubérances

2022-10-20

Harbour : Huddersfield

2022-10-15

Harbour Tour : Birmingham

2022-10-13

Harbour Tour : Cork

2020-06-16

Reservoir for Memory

2020-01-16

Innermost songs