Gérard
Coopéré's collection is an explorer's one ; it reminds of the 'Curiosity
Shows' of the 18th century' discoverers. Indeed, we're talking about trips,
noble and generous trips, about going to meet men and their music's, in
search of an universality of feelings and to come back here to propose
new forms and sounds, that are surprising and remarkable.
If music is a language, instruments are its more infinitely various tools. Each of the instruments that have been brought back by Gérard Coopéré delivers as many messages, and signs, as in the ancient texts, these, which were tales carrying myths.
Here
is a musical bow from Casamance, here is a shell-horn from the Pacific
Archipelago, and we don't know who, between the hunter and the fisher,
was the first one to divert the daily object in order to produce sounds
out of it. There are 'speaking' drums, a Binh from the snakes' charmers,
and an African Harp with a human face.
Traditional instruments do not only evoke anthropomorphism and zoomorphism. The fact that some instruments resemble a human being or an animal allows the musician to maintain relations of language, seduction, and magic with his universe. In other words, forms and materials are as important as the music itself.
As a matter of facts, a traditional musical instrument, whatever the material it is made of (reed, wood, bones or copper) is a memory of our civilisation's childhood. Furthermore, Gérard Coopéré's mythological route is opened on the dream as well as on memory .
The
amazing daring of certain techniques of music's brought the modern musicians
to have a closer look at traditional instruments. Drummers have explored
the African polyrhythmic, and the Jazz saxophonists players have fortunately
experienced the circular breathing playing, known from the Râjasthân up
to Sardinia.
Our collector is himself a talented saxophonist and his choices are those of a music practitioner. He managed to be in constant contact with the musician partners in his meetings. Those relations of esteem and trust give its own truth to each object. Indeed, the Instrument presented here has been through somebody's hands, somebody who by using it gave it a lively resonance.
The various routes proposed by Gérard Coopéré add some pleasure to the discovering and the understanding of these sonorous objects presented under the form of an itinerant exhibition, 'Music's from Here and Elsewhere'. We have the opportunity to follow in Gérard Coopéré's footsteps and passion, which gathered those musical instruments, as many reasons to embark on this new trip .
Eric Montbel
Directeur
artistique du Centre des Musiques Traditionnelles Rhône-Alpes
Music's from here and elsewhere
