Tapages
With Jessica Martin Maresco / Michel Mandel / Martin Debisschop
12 february / 2024
Au coeur de l’Hiver
With Jean-Marc Rochette / Séverine Carpentier / François Raulin / Richard Bonnet
Les 18 & 19 march / 2024
23 november / 2024
Black is the Colour
With Laura Tejeda / Pascal Berne / François Raulin
7 april /2024
17 august /2024
EJE
With Maria Gasca / Richard Bonnet
28 april /2024
Misterioso
With François Raulin / Richard Bonnet
3 may /2024
14 september /2024
Otorigène
With Jessica Martin Maresco / Anaïs Gardou / Antoine Arnera
… /2025
Vertical
With Samuel Ber / Antonin Tri Hoang / Soet Kempeneer
… /2025
HAÏKUS
The 17 haikus we’ve produced over the last 3 years have given us the opportunity to meet a wide range of artists and collaborate with a wide range of venues. This format has proved its worth, and we hope to continue it over the next 3 years.
For each encounter, a haiku in the form of short texts, a few words, short musical themes or other imaginary links will be proposed to the audience. A light musical form, in duo or trio, the starting point for creating the conditions for artistic encounters with young or established musicians from our region.
Original short pieces at each concert, with specific work on improvisation that these artists have each developed in their own way. At the end of the first stage, and after a review of what has been created, this will give us a vision for an overall project that could take the form of a more substantial orchestra, with the most committed personalities we have met…
We see this imaginary link as an invitation to the artists, but also as a gateway for “neophyte” listeners who may have few references or little experience of improvised music and jazz.
Increasing the number of encounters, offering opportunities for exchange and openness. We want La Forge to be a place where people can share in these new moments.
Tapages
TAPAGES is a concept concert, bringing together three improvisers on stage for a low-key concert that plays on the small, the suggested, the equivocal, the breathy, the almost…
It’s not an audiogram test, even if for some it will seem like one. It’s about the pleasure of playing with parameters that are de facto erased in full voice, of exploring a whole new musical potential, of enhancing the microscopic field.
Au Coeur de l’Hiver
In 2020, when he began work on La Dernière Reine, Jean-Marc Rochette decided to make Les Étages, in the Écrins massif, his year-round home. The hamlet had not been inhabited in winter since the 1960s.
Cut off by several avalanche paths, its access road closes in December and opens in March. It is on this island of ice and snow that the author embarks on a winter sojourn in the form of an inner journey, where the everyday rubs shoulders with the extraordinary.
Black is the Colour
In the process of creation
The trio, comprising Laura Tejeda (vocals), François Raulin (piano) and Pascal Berne (double bass), present ‘Black is the colour’, a musical creation inspired by songs from around the world.
Following in the footsteps of Luciano Berio and his Folk Songs, it is around the voice that the three artists will explore these chosen melodies, all of which have touched and moved us on their discovery. Without frontiers and with a particular attachment to improvisation and the modes of play that link them, the trio invites you on a journey.
Misterioso
In the process of creation
François Raulin (piano, compo) & Richard Bonnet (guitar) play the music of Thelonious MONK
One of the most singular artists of the twentieth century, as much for his revolutionary playing as for his magnificent compositions, Thelonious Monk has influenced everyone in m various ways but has no direct heir (or very few). A master of emptiness, rhythm and dissonance, he is instantly recognisable, like all the great jazz musicians.
Otorigène
In the process of creation
Otorigène is a trio on the edge between the deaf and hearing worlds, exploring the limits of sound and French Sign Language in the service of poetry. A project to create an unidentified spectacular object.
“Sign languages are special in that they are not totally foreign to the vocal languages in which they develop, but at the same time they are based on a totally different understanding of the world. We walk the same streets, eat the same food, dress according to the same dress codes and apply the same rules of social life. But a chasm separates us that can prove to be a gulf, introducing a radical strangeness into our shared culture.
Vertical
In the process of creation
“But this country is an island that nature itself has enclosed within immutable boundaries. It is the land of truth (a flattering word), surrounded by a vast and stormy ocean, the empire of illusion…”. Kant – Critique of Pure Reason
Sailing through this vast and stormy ocean, encountering Escher staircases, living architectures that fold and unfold as visitors wish, and other magical gears… For this first Haïku at the Forge, I’d like to invite the French saxophonist Antonin Tri Hoang and the Belgian bassist (electric and acoustic) Soet Kempeneer to play a new repertoire of vertical compositions, built like mobiles, pillars, columns…
EJE
In the process of creation
Personal themes or those of composers unfold according to their inspiration, without any script, and with no servitude other than the rhythm and melody that unfold.
The guitar and the dance turn and turn: they recreate each other, inspire each other, respond to each other, oppose each other or accompany each other… In front of this show, you shouldn’t try to understand, but simply let yourself be carried away and feel… which is the best way to understand and immerse yourself in this art.