Stephan Dunkelman

Rhizomes collects seven acousmatic works by Stephan Dunkelman written between 1991 and 2000, most of them realized at the Musiques & Recherches studios in Ohain or in his own studio. Dunkelman describes his music as uniting time and space, with the spirit of dance and the need for silence as his guides, and sound patterns chosen for their shape or for the images they suggest.

Dance runs through the disc. Metharcana (1998), from material for a production by the choreographer Michèle Noiret, reverses the usual relation and explores space within a timeframe set by the choreography; it won a first prize at the Stockholm Electronic Arts Award in 1998. Rituellipses (1993-96), music of “sounds in movement” made by and for dance, sweeps fragments of concrete and instrumental patterns into rotating trajectories, with Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice and the Tavianis' Night Sun in mind; it received an honourable mention at Ars Electronica in 1995. Hanna' Duet reproduces a short segment of choreography.

Dreamlike Shudder in an Airstream Part 1: for a crumpled woman (2000), for 8 channels, shared the Public's Prize at Métamorphoses 2000. Aquaéra 1 was his first piece with sampled real sounds. Signallures (1991), a study of striking and rubbing and their trajectories across the stereo field, was a finalist at the Luigi Russolo competition. Thru, Above and Between, his first work for radio, commissioned by Musiques & Recherches, portrays Brussels as an imploding dream.

Born in Brussels in 1956, Dunkelman studied acousmatic composition with Annette Vande Gorne at the Conservatoire royal de Mons, graduating in 1999. He wrote for exhibitions, dance, fashion and film, often with visual artists such as the painter Axel Miret, who made the cover. He died in Brussels in 2020.

CD in OGpak, empreintes DIGITALes IMED 0263, 2002.