The latest album by Midget!, Ferme tes jolis cieux, owes a lot to the work of British artist Gavin Bryers for both the form and ideas underpinning it. This composer and pioneer in free improvisation had the opportunity to listen to it via Bertrand Belin who was performing one of his operas.

During the development of the album, and especially for the track Premier Soleil, Midget! drew on the circulatory movement of cellos in The Sinking of the Titanic and the incantatory and repetitive motifs of another masterpiece by Bryars, Jesus Blood never failed me yet. Gavin Bryars suggested a collaboration and Midget! decided to entrust him with the orchestral arrangements on its next album. He ended up conducting it, creating new compositions in a unique piece thanks to his genius understanding of tones and materials.

The original idea behind the work was to bring together art music and popular music – from Léos Janacek to Ben Johnston and Caroline Shaw.

This collaboration comes to fruition on stage with a choir of four, an octet (comprising violin, viola, cello, flute, bassoon, oboe, vibraphone/timbals) and Gavin Bryars himself on double bass. Here, Midget! will be collaborating with the versatile Ensemble 0 for the instrumental part and with Macadam for the chorus of voices. The multi-faceted genius of these groups is sure to make a marvellous contribution to the project.

As the opening act, multi-instrumentalist Sacha Gattino will play his jubilatory Combinatoire à Combines, an amplified ensemble including samples of over one hundred acoustic object instruments operated using a keyboard controller.