Maud Blandel, Flavio Virzì, ASLAA – Association Sports et Loisirs des Aveugles et Amblyopes
Radio That Matters
2024
February 8 at 14:00
Friche la Belle de Mai, Le Module
Radiophonic creation
Duration: 2h
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Free entrance with reservation
In partnership with GMEM - Centre national de création musicale and Radio Grenouille
With the Swiss Cultural Center. On tour
A project supported by the European Union's Creative Europe program
“During our meetings, we seek to bear witness to voices that have marked our lives, spoken voices and sung voices, to re-summon these voices through our own, but also to invent ways to restore a song kept secret for the listener: through our descriptions, our translations and our different forms of interpretation.” — Maud Blandel
Choreographer Maud Blandel, composer and guitarist Flavio Virzì and members of ASLAA – Association Sports et Loisirs pour Aveugles et Amblyopes, have joined forces to create a radio piece that explores the relationships between voice, memory and emotion. At the intersection of sound research, performing arts and reflection on the accessibility of works for visually impaired people, this creation is part of the European project Radio That Matters. In this project, artists, radio stations and associations of visually impaired people are invited to create innovative artistic forms together that allow the experience of festival time and content for all.
Since 2016, Maud Blandel has been supported by Parallèle in production and broadcasting.
The radio piece will be followed by a public conversation about the project.
Biographies
Initially trained as a dancer-performer in Toulouse, Maud Blandel (FR/CH) is a choreographer based in Lausanne. She completed her training at the Manufacture (Lausanne), then at the HEAD in Geneva. In 2015, she founded the association I L K A and began her own activity. Her approach to dramaturgy, her taste for transformation and her concern for musicality lead her to create unique and powerfully composed choreographic objects. Maud is interested in exploring physicalities and states of presence resulting from a constant negotiation between the principles dictated by/for the collective and individual expressiveness.
Recently involved in the sound creation of L’oeil nu, she now gives sound and music a decisive place as a true dramaturgical tool. Maud has collaborated with Cindy Van Acker, Heiner Goebbels, Romeo Castellucci, and is very active with young artists. Interested in pedagogy, she regularly speaks in different schools. Maud has been an artist in residence at Arsenic (Lausanne) since 2018, and is an associate artist at the CNDC in Angers and Bonlieu scène nationale in Annecy for the years 2024 - 2026.
Flavio Virzì is a guitarist and composer from Palermo. An eclectic explorer of different aesthetics, he is regularly invited as a musician by renowned contemporary music ensembles, including the Ictus Ensemble (Belgium), Contrechamps (Switzerland) and the Ensemble Mosaik (Germany). He has performed at numerous international festivals, such as Milano Musica, Ultraschall Berlin, Salzburger Festspiele and Schwetzingen SWR Festspiele, and has collaborated with institutions such as the Berlin Staatsoper, the Hamburg Staatsoper, the Rhein National Opera, the Theater Freiburg, the Bayerische Staatsoper and the Accademia Teatro alla Scala.
His compositions are the result of a process of assimilation of multiple influences and explore microtonality, elements of non-European musical traditions, as well as improvisation. His recordings are published by labels such as Wergo, Stradivarius and Da Vinci Publishing.
Flavio Virzì graduated in classical guitar at the Conservatory “A. Scarlatti” in Palermo, then continued his studies in Paris with the famous Master Alberto Ponce at the École Normale de Musique “A. Cortot” (Diplôme Supérieur d’Exécution). Thanks to a Swiss federal scholarship, he furthered his studies at the Musik Akademie in Basel under the direction of Stephan Schmidt and Mike Svoboda (Master in Musical Performance - Guitar and Specialized Master in Contemporary Music Performance).
The non-profit Association Sports et Loisirs pour Aveugles et Amblyopes, created in 1973, aims to promote sports and cultural activities for people with visual impairments. While the integration of the visually impaired is not always possible in schools and workplaces, the association strives to promote it through sports and leisure activities. Cross-country and tandem skiing activities, in addition to the sporting aspect, have a significant educational contribution: it requires the blind person to have qualities that are essential for their mobility-reflexes, flexibility, sense of direction, knowing how to overcome apprehension, feeling the terrain, and having great confidence in oneself and in others.
Credits
Photos
© Elie Grappe, Flavio Virzì
