Christophe Guiraud

Born in South West of France, Christophe Guiraud grows between rock experimentation and free jazz, as a drummer and composer in several formations. He studies electroacoustic composition as an autodidact, working with different independent bands. Working first as a sound engineer, he discovers the "art of fixed noises" and experiment for many years in his own studio. During these years, he understands the textural possibilities of sound objects and begins to feel the possibility of a dialog between his past instrumental experimentations and the electroacoustic world of machines : this period gives him the taste of laborantine work, of constant experimentation and the conviction that playing on numeric devices couldn't replace a deep knowledge of electroacoustic "instruments". His first solo project is an ep, Moorning, out in 2000 on the independant label Angstrom records, under the name "Tellemake" (homerism meets technology). Noted in independant circles as a promising and complex first work "where radicalism meets sensibility" (Julien Jaffré) this project strikes by its emotional yet very experimental intensity. In 2005, he releases a lp on the same label : Scarbo. In this work, electronic and instrumental sounds (piano, cello, drums and melodica) interlace. These instrumental sources are subtly modified with sampler. Scarbo associates "electronic and acoustic in a same compositional gesture". It is described as a "feverish and inspired music" (dmute). In the meantime Christophe Guiraud works with the formation "Les Électrons Libres" and with Pauline Nadrigny (Lodz) and Cyril Lefèvre on several silent films : Murnau (Der letze Man) Paul Leni (The Cat and the Canary), Raoul Walsh (The Thief of Bagdad): Carl Dreyer (The master of the house) , Gemrain Dulac (Smiling Mrs Beudet). He works with cinematheques (Institut Jean Vigo in Bordeaux, Cinémathèque de Toulouse), for the Fondation Cartier (Printemps de Septembre) and for the Palais de Tokyo de Paris. This involvement in film music is relevant : moving picture is for Christophe Guiraud a good metaphor of this new sound material, fixed and plastic at the same time, that new composers has to "sculpt" as the cineast - quoting Tarkovski's famous word. The stretching of musical time and the research on a subtile meeting between electronic and instrumental sounds are the core of Guiraud's current works. Collaborating with musicians of Toulouse's Conservatory of music, and the free jazz singer Jessica Constable, he leaves France and settles in Brussels, where he meets the traditional singer Zahava Seewald and several musicians form Brussels's and Liege's Royal Conservatories. This recapture, the modulation of instrumental sounds, tends to be as intimate as possible, and refuses "spectacular" effects that opposite electronic gesture and organic sounds. This subtile meeting concerns time too : his music tends to create a dialog between musical traditions, from modal patterns to spectral sequences. It invites to sonorous contemplation as a long musical traveling crossing different traditions and heritages. "Electronic music should be rid of all its laboratory background to be perceived as an organic sonority of the world", says Tarkovski in The sealed time. Less than an invitation to return to an hypothetic "nature", these words invites today composers to reconnect their work with our forms of life. In this gesture, Christophe Guiraud tries to create his own musical composition, building bridges between different musical traditions, often compartmentalized. In this purpose, he creates in 2011 the ensemble "La grive". This idea is the result of a complex - if not hybrid - musical path itself : from bruitism and experimentation to classical notation, it tends to bring an independant gesture in more formal music circles.

Fondateur du festival Abside, musique ancienne, création contemporaine.
Cet événement annuel vise à réunir des interprètes de la musique ancienne et des compositeurs actuels, dans une recherche autour de l'organologie, ainsi que de l'écriture musicale médiévale et baroque.
Dans ses œuvres, il fait ainsi intervenir des instruments du répertoire ancien (luth, cistre, viole de gambe, traverso baroque...) dont il explore les possibilités timbrales. Son expérience de la notation musicale et sa connaissance des instruments anciens lui permettent ainsi d'appréhender les enjeux musicaux des époques concernées (dans un esprit assez proche, il a ainsi composé l'intégralité de la musique pour l'audioguide de l'ONF « Les mémoires de pierre », ainsi que du projet Talmont).

Il collabore actuellement avec de nombreux ensembles belges et européens.