Transcultural Music Academy 2023

Born in Paris in 1968, Keyvan Chemirani grew up in the hills of Manosque. He was trained in Persian art music by his father Djamchid, born in Teheran, a zarb virtuoso. The great master was keen to combine his traditional music with the theatre (Peter Brook’s Mahabharata), dance with Maurice Béjart or Carolyn Carlson or contemporary music.
Today, Keyvan has become a master of the zarb, the daf and the bendir. The art of Iranian percussion is based on poetry. The structure of the instrumental pieces for the zarb is inspired by Persian poems, the blows on the goatskin covering the instrument echo the feet of the verses. For Keyvan, music cannot be limited to the secular Persian repertoire, for it is above all a matter of sharing. He loves encounters and mixtures to create bridges between East and West and between all forms of music.

As a curious musician, he travels around the world improvising with many artists, singers and instrumentalists. These improvisations capture the particular characteristics of different traditions and reveal surprising similarities, showing, for example, how Iranian percussion can be similar to the sound of the Indian tabla, how the Breton language sounds almost Mediterranean.
His instrument, the zarb, has found a place in the world of jazz. Keyvan has collaborated with the likes of Didier Lockwood, Sylvain Luc, Louis Sclavis and Renaud Garcia-Fons. An explorer, he also enjoys working with early music ensembles such as Dominique Vellard’s Ensemble Gilles Binchois, La Chapelle rhénane with whom he recorded Schütz’s Psalms of David, and Leonardo García Alarcón’s Cappella Mediterranea, with whom he was invited to perform as a soloist and with whom he premiered Falvetti’s Il Diluvio universale at the Ambronay Festival.

His first opus Le Rythme de la parole was released in 2004. It brings together guests from different musical backgrounds (Mali, South India, Iran, Morocco, Provence, Brittany, Turkey and the Arab-Andalusian world). In 2006, he produced Le Rythme de la parole II, which features Ali Reza Ghorbani, Nahawa Doumbia and Sudha Raghunathan, three singers, each of whom has a vocal tradition.
During the International Festival of Nomadic Music in 2005, Keyvan Chemirani met the Mauritanian singer Mohamed Salem Ould Meydah. Together, they created Tahawol, a unique encounter between Persian percussion, flamenco and Mauritanian dance and song.

As a loyal member of Royaumont, he participates in encounters that combine the oral poetry of slam with musical experience, such as Slam et percussions, created in 2005, and Slam et souffle, created in 2006. Keyvan Chemirani thus transfers to the field of contemporary and urban music the junction that he has managed to make between the prosodic and musical structures of several sung languages.
2008 was marked by his encounter with the Indian tabla of Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, which resulted in the album Battements au cœur de l’Orient.
In 2013 he created Trio Chemirani and The Rhythm Alchemy, in 2015 The Rhythm Alchemy, and in 2018 Hâl with his singer sister Maryam, his brother Bijan and the flautist Sylvain Barou.

Among the many bridges that Keyvan Chemirani likes to create is the Jasmin Toccata project with lutenist Thomas Dunford and harpsichordist Jean Rondeau.
In 2022, he composed his first opera Negar, which premiered at the Deutsch Oper in Berlin.

Alone or with outstanding musicians, he performs all over the world. He reveals to his audience the infinite possibilities of Persian percussion. He was able to transform the Persian musical heritage into multiform creations.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCK6SbBplHctOBWc8RP1j7Lw

Efrén López was born in Valencia, Spain, in 1972. He is a musician, composer, producer and sound engineer specialising in the plucked instruments of the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East and Central Asia. He has studied the hurdy-gurdy and the techniques of various Eastern Mediterranean instruments.

He has participated in countless projects with musicians from all over Europe, the Arab world, Turkey, Iran and India. He has played with Jordi Savall & Hespèrion XXI.

He is the founder of the Petrakis/López/Chemirani Trio, L’Ham de Foc, Evo, Aman Aman, EAR and Sabir.

He has performed all over the world with these projects and regularly gives workshops on instrumental technique and modal music theory. Since 2005 he has been organising traditional music workshops in the Valencia region of Spain, bringing traditional forms closer to local musicians.

Number of traines minimum / maximum

Minimum: 6 composers, and/or instrumentalists, and/or singers.
Maximum: 10 composers, and/or instrumentalists, and/or singers.

Pre-requisites and conditions of access to the course

Young artists in the process of higher education or with professional experience.
Participants should have an open mind and a taste for musical research and creation in all its forms, and should have regular musical practice, particularly in collective forms.
Previous experience of improvisation is desirable.
The participants formally commit themselves to follow the entire training course, i.e. 6 days of training and 1 day of post-training concert.
Have a good level of spoken English. The conditions of access are transmitted during the training.

Targeted competencies / operational objectives

At the end of the training the beneficiary will be able to :

• – Recognise the modes and rhythms of the musical cultures of Iran, India and the Eastern Mediterranean discussed during the course, and know how to reproduce them on their instrument.
• Identify the keys to approaching the oriental modality, and the means of integrating this practice with that which he possessed before the Academy.
• – To have acquired an enriched practice of improvisation.
• – To have developed a capacity for listening, learning and openness to practices and music far removed from one’s main practice and/or that which was the object of one’s main education.

Based on the rhythmic and melodic modes of the Iranian, Indian and Eastern Mediterranean repertoires studied during the course, the aim will be to develop, adapt and cross-reference traditional and modern improvisation practices, in a cross-disciplinary approach, to find new modes of expression.

Discovering voices towards improvisation

Based on the rhythmic and melodic modes of the Iranian, Indian and Eastern Mediterranean repertoires studied during the course, the aim will be to:
Developing, adapting and crossing the transversality of traditional and current improvisation modes.
Nurture a process of using improvisation for research purposes.
– To work towards bringing together different expressions of improvisation and traditional rhythms. –
To enrich one’s approach to this mode of practice.

Educational objectives

Knowledge

• • To discover or deepen theoretical knowledge of a specific repertoire.

Expertise

Use the technical specificities to build a sensitive interpretation and present the fruit of this work in public during the final performance.

soft skills

To find one’s place within a group in order to defend a coherent and homogeneous musical discourse.

Course description/content of the training

BEFORE COURSE	Meetings between course participants via videoconference.	A collective meeting with the beneficiaries, the facilitators and the educational manager.
DAY 1	Welcome of the participants to the training >presentation of the beneficiaries, the speakers, the referents (pedagogical, administrative) ; – presentation of the premises ; – presentation of the course of the training; – reminder of the targeted skills/operational objectives > presentation of the premises ; > presentation of the course of the training; reminder of the targeted skills/operational objectives.	Face-to-face reception, with all the participants in the training.
DAY 2	Group theory sessions. Group practice sessions, in large or small groups.	Sessions facilitated by the speakers.
DAY 3	Morning: discovery session of a selection of instruments from the national collection of the Quai Branly -Jacques Chirac Museum. Afternoon: group practice session.	Session moderated by the speakers and members of the Quai Branly -Jacques Chirac Museum. Session moderated by the speakers.
DAY 4	Group theory sessions. Group practice sessions, in large or small groups.	Sessions facilitated by the speakers.
DAY 5	Group theory sessions. Group practice sessions, in large or small groups.	Sessions facilitated by the speakers.
DAY 6	Group theory sessions. Group practice sessions, in large or small groups. Public performance.	Sessions facilitated by the speakers.

Methods used

Pedagogical resources

• Group theory sessions.
• Group practice sessions, in large or small groups.

Technical means at your disposal

• Workrooms, equipped with desks and chairs.
• Outside of class time, during the training period, work rooms for individual or small group sessions can be made available free of charge, upon request and subject to availability.
• Documentation via a private google drive.

Beneficiaries bring :

• their own instruments (except for particularly bulky instruments provided by the training venue) ;
• the scores that are not provided by the training site.

Monitoring and evaluation methods

Before the course

Final selection on the basis of an application file, via an online form, by the pedagogical director, through a questionnaire which allows the needs of the beneficiary to be identified.
Evaluation of the professional level by the biography, CV, scores and recordings requested.

During the course, face-to-face

During the classroom training: evaluation of the beneficiary’s reactivity and ability to quickly integrate the proposals made by the trainers, as well as his/her capacity to integrate into the group.

During the presentation at the end of the training: the interpretation of one or several works in a real situation in front of an audience allows to appreciate the evolution of the interpretation, as well as the emotional and physical postures.

The beneficiaries sign a sign-in sheet for each half-day.

End course :

A certificate at the end of the training, mentioning the objectives, the nature and the duration of the training and the results of the evaluation of the training achievements, is given to the beneficiary, as well as the certificate if applicable.
The beneficiary fills in a qualitative evaluation form in order to assess the training’s achievements from an artistic, pedagogical, human and material point of view.
Concerts outside the framework of the training allow the evolution of the career of the artist and/or his/her ensemble to be followed after the training, and in particular to evaluate the quality of the interpretation as well as the number of concerts given.
A post-training follow-up is established, for which the beneficiaries are asked to inform during the six months following the end of the training of the contracts they have obtained.

Accessibility and consideration of disability situations

The Royaumont Foundation has made the acceptance and participation of people with disabilities a strong commitment to its project. Our training courses are open to people with disabilities and different arrangements can be made according to the specificities of each course. To discuss your needs, please contact us when you register.

• Rooms accessible by elevator.
• Screen equipment and amplified speakers.
• Catering on the first floor.

Pedagogical manager

Jean-Philippe Wurtz, Musical creation pole director
jp.wurtz@royaumont.com

Administrative manager

Samuel AGARD, from the Création musicale Pole
s.agard@royaumont.com
Phone : +00 33(0)1 30 35 59 83

Disability referents

Samuel Agard and Doriane Trouboul