Daniel Kientzy – Meta Duo

Interviewed by Giorgos Frangiskos

Daniel Kientzy is unanimously considered as the hero of the contemporary saxophone.
First price at the unanimity in saxophone and chamber music to the Conservatory of Paris, it does not satisfy the repertory and stereotyped utilizations in vigor, it undertakes researches without preceding, discovering new playing technics and new expressive possibilities that have revolutionized the saxophone.
He is the only saxophonist who regularly plays all seven members of that family, from the minnow sopranino to the Behemoth contrabass. Collaborating closely with tens of composers, Daniel Kientzy has aroused a repertory without preceding works for the seven saxophones (more than 400 pieces have been written for him).
Its treaty "The multiphonics", appeared to Publishing Salabert, has obtained the Great Price SACEM 1982, "L’art du saxophone " (1993), and the monumental book "SAXOLOGIE" (1990).
He is Doctor the University Paris VIII and Doctor Honoris Causa at the Bucarest Music University.
Actually Daniel Kientzy has published (2006) 72 records in differents countries : France, Spain, Rumania, Russia, United States, Danemark, Corea, Portugal, etc…
He has given to the saxophone a presence and a new scenic dimension. He is considerate as the "inventor"of the contemporary saxophone.

In what ways do you use technology in your music? How did your relation with technology begin and how has it evolved?
For me, initially, technology was about timbrality, but very quickly it became poetry and expression. Let us remember that we perceive the emotion of others from the sound and tone of their voice rather more than from the words themselves.

Technology is no longer the prerogative of the rich or the computer specialists. Does this make music sound more uniform - how difficult is it to be different today?
Computers have not brought about any fundamentally new process of sound manipulation. They have merely ceded access to all sound manipulation at a fair price to a larger number of people, but more often than not, at a very low quality. They have fed a community habit of not spending the necessary sums for quality audio gear of the pre-informatics era, preferring instead to use software of remarkable efficiency considering its cost, but rather mediocre quality compared to professional hardware counterparts.
Since a reference to analog sound design has been lost, too many composers pile up timbres without relief nor expression - this happens in spite of (or rather because of) the complexity of a process defying the laws of understanding in works dedicated to the God MAX, which is capricious with the possible and allergic to the public. Naturally - and fortunately - there are “heretics” who ignore this God whose cradle never encompassed anything of the art of acousmatic sounds or instrumental-acousmatic work.

Electroacoustic music appears to speak to the hearts of limited audiences in relation to other electronic music genres. Do you think this is the case and why? Can listeners be "educated" to appreciate the less popular genres? Is this a good idea in your opinion?
Taste in music is a matter of habit (when it is not posture) and not of education: none of the aficionados of experimental pop music received education for this ambitious type of music. Over the previous thirty years more than 10% of the French population received musical education in the French music academies without any impact on the frequent and ever reliable concerts with accessible programs.
There is no quantitative hope as long as audio and audiovisual media do not bear an obligation to present a truly diverse program. It is not the creators that are hurt by this situation but rather the mass of citizens, deprived of the privilege of musical pleasure that could be derived from quality music works.

Electroacoustic music is often used within other art forms, such as video or theatre. Do you feel that this could be where its future lies? Is this a way to attract more people to electroacoustic music or will this be to its detriment?
At least in France, since its beginning, electroacoustic music has been closely related to other arts - poetry, cinema, etc., and even to TV news. Of course at a certain time particular concerts of electroacoustic music required a police presence just as pop concerts did, although for a long time this has not been seen.

Most of the artistic creations we'll be seeing and hearing in Electromedia works '08 will be created with the help of modern technology. Has technology opened up the doors of art to more people - both creators and audience?
Although electroacoustic music has expanded like never before the camp of sonic poetry and expressivity it is sad to testify that it has not enlarged the circle of melomaniacs.

Live electronics, live improvisation or jamming between electronic musicians, performers and even “laptop orchestras” seem to be becoming more and more popular. Could this approach of electronic music -incorporating a 'band feeling' - bring more people into the this scene (in contrast to the more introverted 'acousmatic' music?
It is absolutely natural that composers should be jealous of performing musicians - that composers should want to "play" the musician. But to say that this will become a popular phenomenon seems to me to be exaggerated. If music from its birth right up until the 20th century has developed with and through instruments - instruments that are indispensable to its physical existence and which complete things via the art of interpretation - the art that we call music is something different. If people have not really understood this, the genre of acousmatic music should have revealed it to them. Moreover, and in all respects, the principal actor in the whole phenomenon is not who we imagine but in fact is the receiver, the listener, the spectator who comprehends (or not) whatever is addressed to him.
Anyway, dogs distinguish sounds over a much wider scale than humans do and they understand to the same level a Bach fugue and the nuptial song of an nightingale. The most remarkable of our conductors cannot tell the difference between the song of peace and the song of war of the pygmies.

Electroacoustic music is in a sense more democratic than pop music: you don't need a tremendously expensive studio to compose your music and no huge international record companies are likely to promote your works, so composers from around the world have more equal chances of being heard. Do you find interesting differences in the electroacoustic music composed in different parts of the world?
From a material and social viewpoint, it is simpler to partake in a piece of acousmatic music than in a piece that calls for acoustic instruments. Furthermore
an adult internet could even prefer this musical genre. It would suffice to stop the
mercantilism and extinguish the madness that has seized this kind of media.

Have you worked with any Greek composers of contemporary or electroacoustic music? Are you interested in such a cooperation?
Of course, given their historic tradition and their charm, a western performer would want to work with a Greek composer. I have done this, and it has offered me –among other things - one of the most played instrumental-tape pieces
in the world :«Les visages de la nuit» of Haris Xanthoudakis… although it is written for contrabass saxophone (70 kg in its case) and tape.

What are your current interests and your future plans? Are you planning any cooperation with electroacoustic composers?
I have always been engaged in electroacoustic music and listening and performing of this music genre has always been charming to my ear. This being the case
I have naturally ongoing projects with electroacoustic composers.
These are in addition to pieces in this genre that have already been written and which I have not yet had the time to perform in concert or record in the studio - as recording is for me a particular mode and thus different to performance.

Daniel Kientzy
Paris, April 2008