Olivier Pasquet

Wrapping up our series of posts introducing the senior faculty of June in Buffalo 2010, we present French electro-acoustic composer Olivier Pasquet. Noted for his multimedia collaborations, Pasquet will give two workshops during the festival as well as presenting his own work.  His workshops will explore Computer Aided Composition, demonstrating techniques for using computers to develop both electronic and acoustic pieces.

"Writing electronic music may seem like an easy task at first," says Pasquet. "All who have tried have realized that there is a difference between writing a piece that sounds either amateurish or too commercial and creating something truly unique. Electronic music is supposed to be opening new horizons towards melodic and rhythmic structures that are not limited by physical properties of natural instruments and its musicians. One can argue though, that the removal of all such intermediaries brings the composer a step closer to the ultimate barrier. Of course, we’re talking about inspiration.

Pasquet's own compositions will be heard as well, among them a work for voice and computer, and a collaborative project titled Haxan in which he and Mauro Lanza created a soundtrack for the early Swedish silent film of the same title. Here one can glimpse a bit of City of Flowers, an installation that "invites one to discover a poetic representation of the city."