Berceuse is a performance about lullabies. It explores the essence of it. What constitutes a lullaby? What is it for? Are lullabies for children only? Through the life of a man, we hear his fears, what reassures him, we hear other voices and the whole story is carried by music. Lullabies' true essence probably is intimacy and the contacts we have with others.
This project started years ago. While experimenting on my keyboard, the Casio SK-1, I came up with a very simple chord sequence that I really liked. I started to experiment with it through the effects of my pedal board. I realised that this sequence sounded to me like a lullaby. This made me think about lullabies and their purpose. I started wondering why we did not have lullabies for adults. Don't we need reassuring too?
Fascinated by this question, I wrote to Clärli Honegger, asking her, originally to write lyrics to what could be a song. It would be a lullaby from which each verse is for a different age group, with a chorus to tie them all. This structure was kept, but the project evolved. Instead of being a song, it became a series of five poems. We decided to create a recorded piece, a sort of radio play. For the musical content, I used the original chord sequence that gave me the idea for this piece. I modified it, played it on different instruments and try to tell a similar story as the poems.
Being a student at the ZHdK offered us the possibility to develop this project much further. With the resources available at school, both human and material, we were able to try to push this idea to its maximum without having to be too limited. Starting from the structure, poems and musical ideas of the original piece, we generated a new work re-designed for performance. Many elements were added in the text and in the music. The scenography was also an entirely new dimension to explore, which had a significant influence on the spatiality of sound as well. The idea was now to create an experience for the listeners, a sort of process. I gathered a team of people to support this project better. ZHdK's alumni Luca Vincenzi helped to bring life to the text and how to arrange it with the other elements (even improvising on lights, as I could not find anyone for stage design). I also asked my friend and musical partner Sylvain Wenger to be there for the performance, so he could help me trigger all the cues, and play the piano. The team had very limited time and I am amazed at what we could accomplish. There is always room for improvement, but I am definitely considering trying to set up this performance to be executed again.
Berceuse is a performance about lullabies. It explores their essence. What constitutes a lullaby? What is it for? Are lullabies for children only? Through the life of a man, we hear his fears, what reassures him, we hear other voices and the whole story is carried by music. Lullabies' true essence probably is intimacy and the contacts we have with others.