Pierre Thilloy commission for Choeurs de Lumière - 6.06.08
A chance encounter leads to a new Tenebrae commission by French composer Pierre Thilloy:
While working on the Choeurs de Lumière 2008 project, I noticed the biography of Pierre Thilloy, a French composer, sitting on the desk of our colleague Pierre-Yves Detrey.
Upon closer examination, it turned out that Pierre Thilloy was not only an incredibly productive composer, but he has been the recipient of many prestigious and outstanding awards world-wide, and he is very much in demand.
Renato Häusler, the creator of the Choeurs de Lumière projects, and I had often talked about commissioning a work written specifically for these extraordinary concerts. We decided to contact Pierre to organise a meeting and present our project.
Some time later, we met with Pierre on top of the tower of Lausanne Cathedral, where Renato works as the Nightwatch. It turned out we did not need to present Tenebrae and the project to Pierre at all. He had heard of it and had listened to some Tenebrae recordings, and the idea was sold!
It felt as if we were meant to meet and work together.
Pierre recently took a trip to Echternach, Luxembourg to hear Tenebrae ‘live’ and to meet Nigel Short. He was, again, incredibly impressed with the quality of Tenebrae’s performance, and he will now start writing a piece based on the theme of ‘darkness and light’, working closely with Nigel. The work will have its World Premiere during the Choeurs de Lumière concert on November 14 at the Geneva Cathedral, Switzerland.
We feel very privileged to work with Pierre and look forward to discovering this new piece.
Barbara Pollock