Composer/Sound Design Chloe Knibbs
Composer Marie Jaëll
Melissa Morris piano
Lighting Design Joe Price
A reimagining and exploration of Marie Jaëll’s piano work Prisme (1888) for solo piano, spatial audio and immersive lighting.
Part of Royal Birmingham Conservatoire’s French Concert Series, Prism is a 40-minute theatrical work for solo pianist and electronics, that is a musical conversation between French composer and pianist Marie Jaëll (1846 – 1925) and Chloe Knibbs.
Centring around Jaëll’s two movement work for solo piano Prisme, the piece considers Jaëll’s multi-faceted relationship with the piano through a wide variety of compositions for the piano, to her career as a virtuoso pianist and touring duo with her husband Alfred Jaëll, as well as her extensive research into piano pedagogy and technique.
The concept of the prism will also be bought to life through a collaboration between the composer and the lighting designer, in which creative lighting of the piano will take inspiration from prismatic shapes and movements. Electroacoustic material will offer different lenses with which to view Jaëll’s work, ranging from victimhood, curiosity, and playfulness as the conversation is played out.
With thanks to the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Research Fund and the Midlands4Cities Doctoral Training Partnership.
Part of RBC’s season of French music.