Jacques Burtin | |
|---|---|
 Jacques Burtin at the 2012 Cannes Film Festival | |
| Background information | |
| Birth name | Jacques René Carlos Burtin |
| Born | 10 November 1955 Paris, France |
| Genres | Contemporary classical, Ambient, Experimental music |
| Occupation(s) | Composer, improviser, writer, film director, (experimental film, documentary film) |
| Labels | Bayard Musique, Mara Productions, Studio SM |
Jacques Burtin (born 10 November 1955) is a French composer, writer, producer and filmmaker.
After studying Literature and Art at La Sorbonne (Paris), he was introduced to the kora by brother Dominique Fournier at the Abbey of Bec Hellouin (Normandy, France) and by brother Dominique Catta, composer and choirmaster of the Keur Moussa Monastery (Senegal). He began to compose for the kora, solo pieces as well as duets with Western instruments.
His works are inspired by poets like Grace Schulman and Christian Bobin, spiritual authors like St. John of the Cross or Etty Hillesum, writers like Georges Simenon or Hermann Hesse, painters like Henri Matisse or Jean-Michel Basquiat, or photographers like Nan Goldin or Diane Arbus. He collaborates with artists, dancers and poets and conceives interdisciplinary performances.
Jacques Burtin is also involved in improvised music and has given concerts based on improvisation with harpist Susan Allen, [1] French panflute player Jean-Claude Mara, [2] Japanese koto player Damien Harada, [3] and French saxophonist Tullia Morand. [4]
In 1997, Jacques Burtin meets Susan Allen, harpist, professor of harp and improvisation at CalArts (California Institute of the Arts). From their meeting until Susan Allen's passing in 2015, they see each other on a regular basis to improvise, give performances and exchange on musical pedagogy. In 2007, they release the CD Renaissance. After the death of Susan Allen, Jacques Burtin pays tribute to the American harpist by creating a dedicated website [5] with unreleased testimonies, musical creations specially written by composers of all horizons and unpublished videos of their Paris sessions (harp and kora improvisations).
Between 2002 and 2012, Jacques Burtin gives seminars on Improvisation and Interdisciplinary Creation in the Faculty of Fine Arts School of the University of Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain, in collaboration with Spanish Choreographer Alicia Gómez Linares.
In 2004, he is invited by the Paul Verlaine University (Metz, France) to participate to the Colloque sur l'Art du Peu (Seminar on the Art of the Few): he gives a solo kora performance based on haikus and writes an essay: La Tentation du peu (The Temptation of the Few).
On 12 May 2006 his music is featured among the works of twelve composers from around the world in Sonic Channels, a concert hosted by the New School University and the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council.
Since 2006, Jacques Burtin also plays the gravi-kora and composes for this instrument. He gives kora and gravi-kora master classes and works on kora pedagogy.
Jacques Burtin writes, produces and directs poetic and experimental short films as well as documentaries on contemporary artists. His films What damns me saves me and The Dialogue of Shadows were screened at the Festival de Cannes in 2011 and 2012. The Child of La République was screened at the Bilbao Short Film Festival Zinebi in 2015.
Burtin is currently working on a multidisciplinary project based on the twenty-two Major Arcana of the Tarot of Marseille. An homage to his late colleague, harpist Susan Allen, this project explores the creative act via improvisation.
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