Yannick // Music
Yannick Mayaud is a conductor with a particular interest in new composition. He is currently musical director of the Philharmonie du COGE in Paris and is a member of Chroma Kollektiv, a new music ensemble based in Germany.
Chroma Kollektiv is a new music ensemble consisting of 12 musicians from 11 countries. Individual members take the lead on different projects to express their own narrative identities, supported by the collective. Chroma places particular emphasis on connecting with its audience in order to jointly explore the relevance of contemporary music in society, enriching this with post-migrant perspectives.
Yannick was commissioned to compose the podcast theme music for this project. Listen to the theme music in its entirety below, and check out the videos of Ling “playing the bicycle”.
A few words from Yannick
“I wrote the music for Heading Out with my brother Jerome (creator of this podcast) in mind, leaning heavily on the influence of the musicians who were surrounding me at the time. These were my colleagues on a year-long academy in Frankfurt run by Ensemble Modern (IEMA), dedicated to the performance of contemporary classical music.
Growing up, I had followed the echoes of my brother’s clarinet through the ranks of the various local orchestras and ensembles, so it felt natural to feature this wistful instrument in an unashamed pastiche of a Benny Goodman ballad. In a nod to the more experimental musical environment of the academy, I have distorted the jazz combo accompaniment with occasional rhythmic surprises and through extended techniques in the accompanying strings: playing or striking the string with the wooden part of the bow and using light finger pressure to sound crystalline harmonics.
Of course, given the subject of Heading Out, I could not resist putting the bicycle itself into the music, and in this endeavour I was greatly aided by the percussionist Ling’s creative use of my own bicycle. I was able to document some of his experimentations in finding the bangs, scrapes and spins that would come closest to emulating a shuffling jazz drumset.
I am indebted to all the contributions from the musicians listed below to the final sound of this short theme, their creativity continues to inspire me as we carry on our collaboration after the academy as Chroma Kollektiv.”
Instrumentalists
Begüm Aslan – Double Bass
Moritz Fischer – Sound Engineer
Albert Kuchinski – Cello
Leonard Melcher – Violin
Tomás Jesús Ocaña-Gonzàlez – Clarinet
Sarah Beth Overcash – Violin
Ling Zang – Percussion (bicycle)
The ensemble recording the music for this audio project (note the bicycle “instrument”).
