Pantomimes (2022-2023)

Four hand piano and electronics

Commissioned by Fonds de dotation Galaxie-Y 

with the support of the Fondation Salabert

Dedication: Rosa Park and Françoise Thinat

Creation: February 18, 2024 

at the Seoul Art Center, Concert Hall,

Seoul, Korea

Eunji Han, piano

Hyunjeong Kim, piano

Duration: 17'30 c.a.

Publisher: Billaudot

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   Pantomimes, for piano four hands and stereo electronics, is conceived as a dream. Or rather a rambling promenade, an initiatory journey taking place between the moment when the child must go to bed and the moment of awakening. These nocturnal dreams, populated by diverse whimsical, grotesque, and poetic characters, evolve constantly, taking the child through sometimes marvelous and sometimes frightening lands, and through states of mind ranging from calm to passion, from joy to fear, and then, just when the dance reaches its most furious level, the moment arrives for returning to reality.

   Pantomimes is a suite of tableaux arranged following a pedagogical progression, accessible to students from the end of the first cycle of piano (about the fourth year according to the usual standards in French conservatories) and reaching pre-professional levels. The work is conceived as a single block, but of course sections may be performed as separate tableaux. In the case of a complete version, the four tableaux follow one another, with an electronic passage serving as a sonic bridge between each tableau, also allowing each pair of pianists to take their places in cases- as si the pedagogical goal of this collection - when each tableau is entrusted to separate pairs of students of different ages and levels.
   The pantomime of the title is not only a musical evocation, it is also perceptible in the staging and piano techniques required of the performers, since each tableau requires one pianist or the other, and sometimes both, to use the instrument in unconventional ways other than simply using the keyboard. Thus transformed into marionettes, the pianists occupy a total sound space, and yet one solely dedicated to the piano (without 'prepared piano' or other artifice), creating a universe echoed and developed by the electronic part with which they interact.

 

Ravages - piano concerto n°1 (2021)

for piano and large ensemble

(3/0/1/0/1-0/0/0/0-3 perc-clav-1/0/1/1-electronics)

Commissioned by the french Ministry of Culture

Dédication : Hilomi Sakaguchi

and ensembles Paramirabo, HanatsuMiroir and Proxima Centauri

Creation: October 21, 2021

La MECA Scène, Bordeaux (France)

Hilomi Sakaguchi, piano

ensembles Paramirabo, HanatsuMiroir and Proxima Centauri

Duration : 26'30 

Publisher : BabelScores

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In 1943, in occupied France, René Barjavel wrote his famous dystopian novel Ravage, in which a hyper-technological society, governed by castes and hierarchized according to capital, environment, borders, beliefs. . . abruptly descends into chaos. Today, in the face of tensions coming from all sides, the climatic, economic and social emergency, many groups or individuals believe in solutions for life in society different from the one which is currently leading us to the same breaking point as the one mentioned in this novel.

Written for the pianist Hilomi Sakaguchi, Ravages is a concerto for piano, ensemble and electronics organized in three movements, three tableaux evoking Barjavel's novel. Didier Rotella's work questions the place and future of what has long been called the "Western cultural model". In general, the music of Didier Rotella seeks to create an area of insecurity which leads the listener to modify his listening during the work. It is an approach that is clearly intended to be discursive, and in no way denies past influences, Henri Dutilleux in mind. This is also why Didier Rotella often associates a literary argument, but in a distant way, with a musical form. The musical gesture becomes in a way a testimony of the societal impact.

 

Partita II  (2020-2021)

for clarinet or flute, saxophone, marimba, percussion and electronics

Commissioned by ensemble Regards and Sacem

Creation: April 12, 2021

Auditorium André Labarrère, Pau (France)

by the students of the Conservatoire de Pau

Duration : 7' c.a.

Publisher : BabelScore

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Partita2_P1

Reinvest a space of musical play from our Western culture to divert its codes, work on the re-interpretation of the different sections that comprise the Partita as we find it in the Baroque period, on pulsed or free beats, or simply on our way of apprehending the notion of entertainment today, such could be the stakes of Partita I and Partita II, unless there is ultimately no other intention than that imagined by the listener himself.

Partita I  (2020-21)

for clarinet, saxophone, marimba, percussion and electronics

Dedication: ensembles Proxima Centauri and Regards

Commissioned by ensemble Regards and Sacem

for the semaine du Son de l'UNESCO 2021

Creation November 25, 2021

SCRIME - Salle Hémicyclia (Bordeaux)

Marie-Bernadette Charrier, saxophones;

Jean-Jacques Godron, clarinet,

Aurélien Hadyniak, marimba,

Benoit Poly, percussion

Duration : 7'00 c.a.

Publisher : BabelScores

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Partita1_P1Partita1_P2

 

 

Reinvest a space of musical play from our Western culture to divert its codes, work on the re-interpretation of the different sections that comprise the Partita as we find it in the Baroque period, on pulsed or free beats, or simply on our way of apprehending the notion of entertainment today, such could be the stakes of Partita I and Partita II, unless there is ultimately no other intention than that imagined by the listener himself.

 

 

 

Mogari  (2019-2021)

for flute, saxophone, percussion, hybrid piano and electronic device

Dedicated to the Proxima Centauri ensemble

Creation on September 12, 2022 at 3:30 p.m.

in Radio France Festival Présences

Maison de la Radio - Studio 104

115 avenue du président Kennedy, Paris 

by the Proxima Centauri ensemble: 

Marie-Bernadette Charrier, saxophones;

Sylvain Millepied, flute;

Benoît Poly, percussions;

Didier Rotella, piano

Christophe Havel, électronics

Duration: 11' c.a.

Editor: Impronta Verlag

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Ecouter en podcast dans l'émission "Création Mondiale" (France Musique - avril 2021)

 

 

 

Absence  (2019)

for harmony orchestra and electronics

Commande of the festival "Musique à l'Encre fraîche"

Creation at the conservatory of Persan (95) on January 21, 2020

by the 3rd cycle harmony orchestra of the conservatoire,

direction : Patrick Laviron

instrumentation: (3-1-4-1-6 / 2-3-2-1-1 / 2 perc.- electro)

Duration : 10 minutes c.a.

Publisher :

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Catharsis  (2017-2018)

for ensemble and live-electronics

2 pianists / 2 percussionists

Commande by Ircam - Centre Pompidou

Dédicated to the Link Ensemble

Creation on June 29, 2018 in Paris - Center Pompidou

by the Link Ensemble

(Laurent Durupt and Trami Nguyen, pianos;

Rémi Durupt and Stan Delannoy, percussion)

IRCAM teams - Benjamin Lévy, R.I.M.

Duration : 30 minutes

 

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Strophe 3 –[Sur le fil]  (2016)

for flutes and real-time electronics

Dedication to Ludivine Moreau

Creation April 15, 2016 at the Center Pompidou (Paris)

by Ludivine Moreau

Duration : 9 minutes 

 

Strophe3 Rotella 7

 

 

Strophe 1 (2010/2012 rev.2013)

for piano and electronics

Creation of the first version: January 13, 2012 at the CNSMDP

Creation of the revised version in Orléans (Institute room) in March 2014

Piano, Didier Rotella

Duration: 7'30

 

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Cryptophonies (2009/2010)

for electronics 

Created on June 2, 2010 at CNSMDP

Duration : 12'15"

 

Torana (2007/2008)
for electronic device

Created on June 12 and October 7, 2008 at the Jean Cocteau Auditorium in Noisiel

during the Journées de l'électroacoustique 2008

on Acousmonium Motus: Didier Rotella, assisted by Jonathan Prager

Duration: 9'33"