Symphonic works

Hameln

Symphonic poem in four movements, inspired by the legend of Hamelin.
19'19" – (2016)

Painting: Egon Schiele, Tote Stadt III (1911).

I. Prelude – 4'10"

II. Dance of the Rats – 5'14"

III. The Pied Piper – 4'12"

IV. Dance of the Children – 5'43"

Valimpseste

13'59" – (2014) – PDF (extract)

Photograph: Xiaojun SONG.

Sunrise on the Highlands

8'00" – (2015) – PDF (extract)

Photograph: Guilhem Mariotte.

Big band works

Kiss Kiss Bye Bye

7'27" – (2016)

Painting: Xiaojun SONG.

Sunset Love

3'58" – (2015) – PDF (extract)

Painting: Xiaojun SONG.

Small bands

Wind and Tears

Duo for cello and piano.
4'04" – (2014) – PDF (extract)

Photograph: Guilhem Mariotte

Rue 5.2

Swing piece.
5'30" – (2016)

Photograph: Guilhem Mariotte

Blue Fonk

Funk piece for jazz band.
4'56" – (2015)

Photograph: Guilhem Mariotte

Projects

Pavot (Poppy)

2'11" – (2018)

Collaboration with Xiaojun SONG.

Ruines (Ruins)

4'40" – (2018)

Collaboration with Xiaojun SONG.

About

This page is intended to give an overview of my musical compositions. A lot of the pieces I wrote are directly inspired by my experience as a musician and my love for musical instruments. I studied the trumpet at a music school in France and I also play the guitar/ukulele, the bass, the piano, the trombone, and the Chinese transverse flute (dizi). These creations are grounded in my former musical experiences in many different orchestras, which I was very fortunate to be part of: Servian's wind orchestra and big band (France), the Université de Lorraine's Symphonic Orchestra (Nancy, France), and several jazz ensembles. As a composer I am mostly self-taught.      photo

Softwares and soundfonts

For both ethical and practical reasons, I try to make use of open source softwares and soundfonts as often as I can. However, as I first started using Finale 2009, most of my scores are written in the Finale format. I have recently turned to Lilypond instead.

Audio preview is generated from the score exported in a MIDI file (an electronic version of the music containing information about notation, pitch and velocity among other things), which is played by soundfonts. For symphonic pieces, I make great use of Crisis General Midi, which is a free and high-quality soundfont. Jazz-funk pieces are for the most part based on the following soundfonts: Titanic 200, FluidR3, and Timbres of Heaven. Audio outputs played by soundfonts are then mixed together to add some effects such as reverberation, compression and equalization thanks to VST plugins. The plugins I often use are GlaceVerb, Space 360 and Ambience for the reverb, the compressor and the equalizer included in the sequencer Kristal, and X-cita for the mastering.

Audio mixing is realized with Kristal or Synthfont sequencers. The latter is specifically designed for handling different soundfonts. The only goal of the final mixing is to get a general idea of how the compositions would sound, were they to be played by actual instruments, as they were meant to be in the first place.

Copyleft

Musical creations from this website are all licensed under the Free Art License. You can freely copy, distribute, and transform them according to the terms of this license. Feel free to contact me in case you have any project which would require the use of one or several of my pieces, I'll be very pleased to talk it over with you.

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Useful links

www.xiaojunsong.net Personal website of visual artist Xiaojun SONG who kindly provided me some of her works to illustrate my music.
lilypond.org Lilypond official website, a music-engraving program which produces high-quality sheet music.
www.bismutnetwork.com Chris "Bismut"'s personal website, who is the author of the high-quality soundfont Crisis General Midi.
www.synthfont.com Synthfont official website, a program for editing and playing midi files using soundfonts and VST plugins.
Kristal Audio Engine Kristal official website, a useful audio sequencer program.
linuxmao.org Website in French about computer music into the Linux environment. A lot of information is given there about music edition and audio mixing programs.
artlibre.org Free Art License official website.
Instrument range Frédéric Szymañski's personal webpage offering a quick overview on the range of the best known Western modern instruments.
Un requiem athée Denis Raffin's blog presenting his creation of an atheistic requiem: a contemporary piece which he is currently working on.

Contact

guilhem.mariotte@gmail.com

Lyon, France

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