Thierry De Mey is a composer and filmmaker and enjoys international recognition for the music he has written for dance companies such as Rosas and Ultima Vez. Light Music spectacularly straddles those various spheres of interest, which since a passage to the Paris IRCAM in the early 1990s can also be counted as (music) technology. The work was written for solo conductor and live electronics. Using sensors, the hand movements of the conductor, facing the audience on stage, are converted into sounds, which in turn are manipulated live in space. The hand movements are not only illuminated in the otherwise dark space, but also projected behind the conductor. In the process, however, delays are built in, creating a complex play of light, movement and, of course, sound unfolds. De Mey wrote Light Music in 2004. The fact that the good twenty-year-old work does not feel dated at all today is probably partly due to the various revisions it has undergone since its creation and in the light of rapidly evolving technology. In the most recent and sweeping update, Thomas Moore, trombonist and conductor at Nadar, played a key role. In collaboration with Centre Henri Pousseur and De Mey himself, the outdated performance software was completely overhauled. But the content of Light Music, which until then had been performed exclusively by percussionist Jean Geoffroy, was also tinkered with. If the original score was indeed essentially written entirely to the beat of a percussionist, Moore and De Mey wanted to bring the composition closer to the conductor’s practice and the associated repertoire of movements. The fact that the performer on stage in this revised version conducts rather than generates the sound adds an interesting new dimension to an already highly layered composition.
