Armando Balice
© Christopher Barraja
Armando Balice is a French Italian composer, improviser, co-founder and director of the musical creation association Alcôme. In his electroacoustic, mixed and acousmatic compositions, he develops a very orchestral writing, and plays with the boundaries of genres. This approach leads him to develop a personal aesthetic influenced as much by classical music as by experimental music or even rock and metal.
The poetic and symbolic dimension of the “black” permeates his music.
He has received several commissions from various structures such as INA-GRM, La Muse en Circuit and Sacem, or from the musical company Motus as well as various festivals.
After graduating the Besançon conservatory in saxophone and getting a musicology degree, he has started to study electroacoustic composition, firstly with Jean-Marc Weber at the Chalon-sur-Saône conservatory, then at the Boulogne-Billancourt Artistic Department with Denis Dufour and Jonathan Prager, and eventually at the Marne la Vallée University in partnership with INA GRM. He teaches electroacoustic composition since 2016, first in Nanterre conservatory, and then at the Le Grand Chalon conservatory and works with “La Muse en Circuit” as a guest teacher.
Black Garden, 25’ / 2019
Commissioned by INA GRM
Cello: Lola Malique
Composed in the INA GRM studios, in Tokyo, and in my personal studio.
“In the light or in the dark, a song comes forward, it takes over a song that was getting tired”
Guillevic, in Le Chant
The expression of an inner garden, of destruction and creation, of darkness and light… I think I put some inspirations of a Japanese Garden in it, but making it very personal and trying to reach something more dramatic and expressive, contrasting with the external peacefulness of such a place. Playing with the symbols and poetry of black, the composition explores the instrumental character in electroacoustic music, mainly through cello, used equally as a lyrical element, as well as a raw material from which other sounds are produced.
I. Prélude
II. Noir I
III. Behind the rocks
IV. Noir II
V. Yet still, we rise
VI. Noir III
VII. Collapse
VIII. Where are you
Empty Garden, 21’05” / 2020
Here I am taking the side that says that emptiness is full, that it is at the origin of everything. Empty Garden was composed with the idea of offering a second part to my piece Black Garden commissioned by INA-GRM. The form approaches it and the sound universe develops there with certain covers.
I. From nothing
II. Noir I
III. In front of the stones
IV. Noir II
V. In the ground
VI. Noir III
VII. Strange immobility
VIII. This is black and light