To celebrate the 80th anniversary of the Archives internationales de musique populaires founded in 1944 by Constantin Brăiloiu in Geneva, MEG is inviting artist Jean-Jacques Birgé to give an audio-visual performance to coincide with the release of the CD "Perspectives du XXiie siècle" (MEG-AIMP) in 2020.
Commissioned by the Musée d'ethnographie de Genève (MEG), Jean-Jacques Birgé has composed a work that incorporates thirty-one pieces from the Collection universelle de musique populaire enregistrée, the famous anthology first published by Constantin Brăiloiu between 1951 and 1958, then reissued by Laurent Aubert in 1984 and 2009. The sixteen pieces on the CD are constructed from composite sound materials: environmental sounds, old sound archives and instrumental sequences that surround the voice, the work's main thread.A disturbing echo of current events, Perspectives du XXIIe siècle is a sound fiction following the journey of humans who must reinvent themselves.
This CD is the fifth title to be released in the discographic series published by MEG and devoted to contemporary creations composed on the basis of its sound archives.
Jean-Jacques Birgé is a multi-instrumentalist. For over thirty years, he has been collecting musical instruments, toys and other sound objects, which he has used to create his own music.His collection includes more than two hundred pieces acquired during his travels or given to him by the many musicians he has worked with.
https://www.meg.ch/en/research-collections/perspectives-du-xxiie-siecle