15 Questions to Jean-François Grancher (Voya Toncitch)

Hi! How are you? Where are you?
Thank you, I am enjoying the sun of the lovely Island of Malta where I live since 1988.

What’s on your schedule right now?
I am revising my last work entitled " Évangile selon Saint-Vivien" in four movements which I will record soon. Also, I am recording my works composed in 2001 "Hommages à Cervantès" and " Feu le rêve" for piano.

What’s your view on the music scene at present? Is there a crisis?
The present music scene is very colourful and I think that there is no crisis. Maybe, there is lack of new ideas and tendencies. However there is outstanding composers all over the world and remarkable works.

What does the term „new“ mean to you in connection with music?
The term "new" concerns last works by composers. It is quite different of "contemporary" which concerns the actual music.

How do you see the relationship between sound and composition?
The sound engenders the composition. The sound has its dialectic and its psychological impact on the composition.

How strictly do you separate improvising and composing?
Improvisations translate the first impulses and the exteriorization of the first creative emotions. If those emotions possess a certain degree of intensity in the space and in the time, it will be materialized in the written work. However, the intensity of the initial emotion, does not guarantee the duration of the presence of the work in the time, whose choice is mostly always arbitrary. I expressed my opinion on dialectic of the sound and its psychological impacts on compositions in my dissertation "Philosophie de la musique contemporaine. Dialectique du son. Contribution à la recherche" first published in Canada and in Spain, now displayed on Internet in Holland.

How would you define the term “interpretation”?
The interpretation translates impacts of the composition on performer’s interiority.

Harmony? Dissonance? The freedom to choose both, none or just one?
The arbitrary choice preceding the creation could be very dangerous.

A lot of people feel that some of the radical experiments of modern compositions can no longer be qualified as “music”. Would you draw a border – and if so, where?
Without radical experiments there is neither progress nor discoveries.

Are “serious” and “popular” really two different types of music or just empty words without a meaning?
"Serious" and "popular" are quite different genuses.

Do you feel an artist has a certain duty towards anyone but himself? Or to put it differently: Should art have a political/social or any other aspect apart from a personal sensation?
Political aspects are very ignoble face of art. Let us not forget the "socialist realism" in Soviet Union and its satellite countries. However, art plays an important role in the society.

The appreciation of music does not originate from the education. The education may be factor of appreciation of the interpretation of works.

True or false: The cultural subsidies doled out by governments are being sent to the wrong kind of people and institutions.
It is true that subsidies do not grant always the people who merit them.

You are given the position of artistic director of a festival. What would be on your program?
My choice would certainly be very subjective.

Many artists dream of a “magnum opus”. Do you have a vision of what yours would sound like?
Absolutely not! Only the public is entitled to designate a "chef d’oeuvre".

Picture by JF Grancher: "Score for any instrument" Suggestion to performer(s)
"Try to see sounds and to hear colours"

Homepage:
Jean-François Grancher (Voya Toncitch) at Cadenza Musicians Directory