Felix Rozen

“Pretty late in my life, I was able to achieve my ‘musical dream’… After completing internships — at UPIC, IRCAM, GRM and even attending courses at the National Conservatory — I was able to compose electro-acoustic works,” Rozen wrote in May 1985. “By the end of 1984, I was even granted fellowships at the Center for Music Experiment in San Diego and in Japan where I was able to conduct musical research.”

In 1984 at IRCAM, Felix Rozen conceived, in collaboration with Marc Battier, a composition on magnetic tape entitled Spectral :
Extract from Spectral, IRCAM, 1984.

In 1984, four further works followed. Transformable Robot; Questions, with Jean-Yves Bosseur and János Négyesy; Bahnhof, with János Négyesy; and Open City, for instrumental ensemble (A.R.I./IRCAM, Pompidou Center, dir. Luca Pfaff):
Extract from Open City, IRCAM, 1985.

Then, in 1985: Noise Is Noise, for four guitars and bands (réal. Jean-Luc Mas, M.A.N.C.A/Galerie des Pochettes, Nice) and Blab II, with Volker Heyn, and Cesta, in 1986.

Exploring all fields of music, Rozen applied himself to instrumental design in the 1980s. He created an instrument he called Pirocello, a cello with clean lines, flamboyant red. The work alludes to multiple sculptural references, from primitive forms to the clean lines of Brancusi. While its name suggests the pirogue, the instrument was designed during the artist’s stay in Tokyo, as evidenced by the Japanese stamp visible inside its sounds holes. The actual sound evoked the voices of Noh theatre. Rozen mixes cultures and inspirations and invites you on a journey. However, the Pirocello is not an image-object; Rozen wanted it to be functional and tried to solve the technical difficulties that were gradually revealed. The Pirocello is a unique and all-encompassing work of art that [progrssively] takes shape.

Christine Laloue, curator at the Musée de la musique in “Felix Rozen at the Musée de la musique,” 2021.

Uncertain Opus was commissioned by Jean-Yves Bosseur for the Intervalles ensemble. Felix Rozen described it as follows: “Composed for six instruments, this work lasts 9 minutes divided into sections of 15 seconds. Each sheet is a sequence equal to 1 minute. At the top of the album [an original edition of 47 copies, including 8 signed and numbered] is a silkscreen that is the result of the superposition of the 9 sequences or minutes.”

“Uncertain Opus marks the beginning of deliberate research at the intersection of music and painting,”

writes Gérard Sourd in Nouvelles de l’Estampe.

“The relationship between the arts is essential for Rozen because ‘painting is putting your feelings to music.’ Inscribed in the material, his music isn’t, however, frozen because it does not stop at the level of his individual creation. [Rozen] invites any musician to give his own interpretation of his work which then becomes multiple. Indefinitely renewable by everyone, the music thus keeps its ephemeral and immaterial character, its plastic and graphic creation proffering a vision as opposed to a notion. Wouldn’t Rozen thus have found the art of remaining eternal?”

analyzes Christine Laloue, curator at the Musée de la musique in “Felix Rozen at the Musée de la musique,” in 2021.