The American quartet Yarn/Wire gives its first concert at IRCAM, with Jaime Belmonte, Lisa Streich, and Alex Mincek transforming the existing instrumentarium. Written for two pianos tuned a quarter-tone apart and for a wide range of percussion instruments, Alex Mincek's imposing work Images of Duration pays tribute to the minimalist painter Ellsworth Kelly. A succession of fascinating sonic landscapes and ‘flat tones’. Lisa Streich orchestrates two motorized pianos in which strips of paper set in motion represent winds and strings, accompanied by real percussion. Her Orchestra of Black Butterflies might just as well have been called Rosebud. As in Orson Welles' work, the drama centers on our memory of a familiar body of music, carried along by this quartet-orchestra.  

Produced by IRCAM-Centre Pompidou. With the support of the Ulysses Platform, co-funded by the European Union.