New York, NY (Top40 Charts) Earlier this spring, electronic music pioneer Jean-Michel Jarre released the musical score for Amazônia, the latest project by award winning photographer and filmmaker Sebastião Salgado which made its debut to high acclaim at the Philharmonic Paris. A portion of the Amazônia exhibition--which was due to travel to Rome, São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and London prior to arriving stateside, but was rerouted due to the global pandemic--is now on view in Los Angeles. Now through November 13, a select number of images from Amazônia as well as others from Salgado's catalogue are on view at the
Peter Fetterman Gallery at Bergamont Station in
Santa Monica, CA.
Composed and recorded as a 52-minute score for the show's Paris debut, Jean-Michel Jarre's Amazônia is available in regular stereo version, as well as in a special binaural version, available digitally and alongside the 5.1. Surround Sound Version available via a download code in the CD & Vinyl. All versions are available now.
Experience Jean-Michel Jarre's Amazônia here: https://jean-michel-jarre.lnk.to/Amazonia
"A bird sings, the wind rushes through the foliage, passing men sing and chat, women bathe, the storm rumbles, a plane flies by, rain falls on the stone, all these random sounds, unaware of any orchestration or arrangement, nevertheless form a global harmony: the music of the forest" - Jean-Michel Jarre
"This, insists Jarre, is 'not background music'. It's the score to an exhibition, set to tour the world, by famed photographer Sebastiao Salgado, which explores the Brazilian Amazon: its forests, rivers and people. Jarre has created an immersive sound world, mixing electronic and orchestral instruments with voices and recordings borrowed from Geneva's Museum of Ethnography. Only in phases is it recognizable as music as we generally understand the term: it's more interested in atmosphere and effect than melody or rhythm. Indeed Jarre's also recorded a binaural (as opposed to stereo) version, which essentially has you listening in 3D." - PROG Magazine (Issue #150).
Fans of Salgado's work who are available to attend the Los Angeles showing or not are encouraged to experience Jarre's work. The binaural version, available on DSPs, provides the listener with a truly spectacular and immersive sound experience. Whereas stereo sound delivers a directive left-ear/right-ear sound, binaural audio, when listened to on regular headphones, creates a 3D surround sound experience, closest to our natural human auditory sense. Amazônia binaural was specially mixed in such a way that the listener feels right in the heart of the forest.
'Amazônia' is an immersive exhibition focusing on the Brazilian Amazon from Salgado's six-year journey through the region, capturing the forest, the rivers, the mountains and the people who live there, and most of the work will be seen publicly for the first time. At the heart of the exhibit is an invitation to see, hear and think about the future of biodiversity and the place of humans in the living world.
Jean-Michel Jarre's accompanying sound-creation is a symphonic world which will engulf visitors to the exhibit in the sounds of the forest. Using a blend of electronic and orchestral instruments with other real-life natural sounds.
"I wanted to avoid the ethnomusicological approach or creating background music. In the Amazonian forest, there is the dimension of nomadism; moving from one place to another, from darkness to light, from a gentle quietude to a latent threat, moving forward leaving reality behind to sink into the power of rites and dreams," says Jean-Michel Jarre. "I built this music like a toolbox, made up of different sound objects, like a wandering through organic, natural, ethnic, orchestral and electronic elements, which would only pass by like in a forest that we would cross and leave behind us, temporary vestiges of a time and a space without end."
Appointed ambassador to UNESCO in 1993, Jean-Michel Jarre is involved in many remarkable projects for tolerance and cultural pluralism, as well as for the defense of nature and the environment. For the 'Amazônia' project, he actively collaborated with the scientific team of the Museum of Ethnography of Geneva (MEG) to restore as closely as possible the sound identity of the forest and the people who inhabit it.
Jarre explains, "To represent the eternal human presence in this great green ocean, I selected incomparable sound material from the precious archives of the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva, unparalleled for their timbre and their dreamlike power. I composed 'Amazonia' in one go, day and night, in front of these photos scrolling in a loop in front of me, immersing myself in this immensity, familiar and mysterious, serene and disturbing, powerful and vulnerable... Sebastião Salgado's forest."
Amazônia by Jean-Michel Jarre is available digitally in standard and binaural audio, as well as as CD and Vinyl via Sony
Music Entertainment.
Show details:
Sebastião Salgado
Amazônia
Musical score by Jean-Michel Jarre
On view now through November 13, 2021
Peter Fetterman Gallery
Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave., Gallery A1
Santa Monica, California 90404
Hours: Wednesday - Saturday 11am - 4pm
www.peterfetterman.com
Amazônia is also available as a hardback book via Taschen.
The French composer, performer, producer, visionary, innovator, cultural ambassador Jean-Michel Jarre is recognized worldwide as one of the pioneers of electronic music. His innovative approach to the visual and highly technological staging of electronic music has paved the way for this culture to flourish worldwide through renowned festivals.
His current catalogue, which includes 21 studio albums, has generated sales of more than 85 million albums worldwide. Jarre has also set records in the Guinness Book of Records through the exceptional participation of the public at his concerts in several emblematic sites around the world: 1m Place de la Concorde (1979), 1.3m Houston,
Texas (1986), 2.5m Paris-La Défense (1990), 3.5m Moscow (1997). Throughout his career Jarre played some of the most exciting landmarks around the globe: He was the first western musician ever to be invited to perform in post-Mao China, and has also played the likes of the Great Pyramids in Egypt, The
Sahara Desert, The Eiffel Tower and the Dead Sea.
In 2017 Jarre was nominated for a prestigious Grammy Award for his album project Electronica (Pete Townshend, Moby, Air, Armin van Buuren, 3D/
Massive Attack, Hans Zimmer, Edward Snowden, Lang Lang). The highly acclaimed album project turned into a spectacular global live tour, ending in his performance at Coachella.
Jarre has long been UNESCO's ambassador for education, science and culture, an unconditional defender of the environment and winner of the Stephen Hawking Medal for scientific communication. In 2021, Jean-Michel Jarre was awarded the insignia of Commander to the Legion of Honour by the President of the Republic; The Legion of Honour is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil.
JEAN-MICHEL JARRE is synonymous with the legendary as he continues to break new ground with each piece of music and live performance. With technology on the forefront of everything we do, Jarre quotes today as "the most exciting time to make music."
