Anouck Genthon, violin
In 2023 a new creative approach emerged through the composition of my first solo piece titled “aẓǝl.” This project allowed me to put my artistic work into perspective by linking it with my past work as an ethnomusicologist, as this solo was rooted in ethnomusicological research I conducted from 2008 to 2011 in Niger and Algeria on Tuareg music (Master’s degree in ethnomusicology from EHESS Paris). During my field research in Niamey, in the Azawagh region of Niger, and in Tamanghasset, Algeria, I had the opportunity to meet Tuareg women musicians playing the “anzad”, a single-stringed fiddle that accompanies traditional vocal poetry. The ornamented playing style and specific sound timbre of this fiddle, made of a single horsehair string, left a lasting impression on my memory, and had an impact many years later on my own violin performance.
It is on the basis of this immersion that this solo creation project has developed, retracing and expanding the play of this lineage from my position as an ethnomusicologist to one as a musician, from the sound of the fiddle to the violin. This solo could thus be perceived both as the result of this lineage and as its extension at the heart of my current sonic affinities. I have begun writing this piece using my personal archives as a means of translating the traces of my own memory, composing a musical form derived from these various sedimentations.