Clic Music

Daniel Schell

Biography

References

A passionate of music and maths. (Schellekens, 1944). Engineer from University of Brussels, then studied M.Sc in Operational Research, London School of Economics. Meanwhile, he studied guitar (with Olivier Morand), flute (with Octave Grillard) in the Academy of Ixelles and Uccle, then composition and harmony with various masters including André Vandernoot and Ronald Zollman. Indian music with Ashok Pathak, Dhruba Ghosh, Pandit Jasraj.

Operas

Daniel wrote three Operas, on texts by Amélie Nothomb:"Hygiène de l'Assassin" ( created in Brussels, 1995 then in Opera Royal de Wallonie, Febr 2000) , "Les Combustibles" (created in Paris, 1997), "Le sabotage Amoureux"(2006, Creation by Opera Royal de Wallonie)
He prepares now 'Les contes de l'Arbre Roi', the myths of the forest, libretto in collaboration with Jean-Claude Servais. Some pieces were created for the City of Rambouillet, with Ensemble Conservatoire de Mons, direction Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven. He is currently writing 'Vendredi/Vrijdag' after the theater play by Hugo Claus.

Compositions

Last compositions include : 3 Brani for the Trio Harmonia, a woodwind quintet 'L'art d'assis', a piano sonata for Alessandra Garossi, vocal quintets 'Funtana', Violin Sonata 'Cecilia Affasciniata'. "Caro Trio Improvisatore for Clarinet" (created 1997 Festival "Gestes et Musique" France Musique.) "le Chant du San Serafino" for Soprano & Quintet on text by Pascale Tison (cr. Ensemble Kadeleis, 1998 Botanique), 'The travelling Musician" (created 2000, Budapest) by Brass Quintet 'Brass in the Five' under the direction of Gergely Vajda. 'Optimal Studies' for various chambre ensemble (Budapest, 2000). 'Gira Girasole'' L'art de la variation, Ensemble Karo solists Zoltan Lantos (viol), Isabella di Venosa (voc) Damiano Puliti (cello) Fête Européenne de la musique, 2001. "Oratorio Ishango" (created 2002) for the Choeur de Namur, the percussionist Chris Joris, musicians and African percussionists. , Direction Denis Menier, on texts by Lokenath Bhattacharya (Bengal), Frederic Tittinga Pacere (Burkina faso), Chirikure (Zimbabwe), Gcina Mhlope (South Afrika),. /// L'Aile Perdue trio for tape-guitare, O.Verschueren ( tg ), E.Suys ( cl ), A.Charbonnel ( cel ).

Compositions in progress include
- A concerto for Sarangi and strings. Soloist: Dhuba Ghosh, .

In the late 70's He has founded the group Cos, with whom he made 5 albums and was present on the European scene. These albums (Postaeolian Train Robbery, Viva Boma) are now re-released by Musea, France. "Swiss Chalet" (EMI), "Passiones" were already small operas and were given more than hundred performances.

Ensembles In the late 70's, Daniel createdé the Group Cos. Successively "Postaeolian train robbery" , "Viva Boma" (EMI) published by Musea, France. Then "Babel", "Swiss Chalet" and "Pasiones" already a small opera which was performed more than 100 times. Soloists include: Pascale Son, Ilona Chale, Charles Loos, Pierre Van Dormael, N. Fiszman, P. Allaert and others. In 1980 and later he collaborates with Dick Annegarn on 'Egmont', an impression on the music of the Low-Countries.

Since 1990, he works with his contemporary chamber Ensemble Karo, (soloists P. Narcisse, D. Descheemaeker, Jan Kuijken J.L.Plouvier, J.L.Manderlier; ...) with whom he has recorded 3 albums: "If Windows they have" and "The Secret of Bwlch" for Crammed Discs, Brussels. The project "Gira Girasole" for Materiali Sonori, San Giovani Val d'Arno involves variations on Italian popular themes. Recently, he has concentrated himself on the Karo Trio, an ensemble in which he invites musicians such as Ariane de Bièvre, Fabrice de Graef, Sandip Banerjee, Carlo Strazzante, in order to perform a music half-written, half-improvised.
His personal research has brought him to combine mathematics and harmony in a personal "Carreaux" language, a kind of optimal harmonic tiling. The transformation of popular (Italian...) or antique (Gregorian, Indian ) melodic elements through this process has dominated his recent works. He has achieved several reasearch projects in various institutions as the Ircam. In 2000, EURO, the European Association of Operational Research has commisioned several musical works related to optimality in music. 'The travelling musician' and 'Optimal studies' were created in Budapest.

Musical theatre:
'L'enfoui fuit' sextet for tiptar, clarinet, cello, French Horn, synthesiser, percussion. Direction: Ken Ichi Nagakawa.
'Digue' (2007 ) on poems by Christian Dotremont, with Video projection, Mathilde Sevrin (sop), Ensemble Conservatoire Mons.
Ijsberen - Ours en cage (2009): A music & film project based on a scenario from Roger Vossenaar. For the strings quartet "Alfama".

Cinema: he wrote the music for many feature films "Het Gezin Van Paemel" van Paul Cammermans-Hugo Claus- prod. Jan Van Raemdonck , "Papegaai" van Hans Hilkema, "de Wereld van Ludovic" van Jean-Pierre De Decker. He wrote for "Ionesco" from Thierry Zeno, "Lions" by Justin Cartwright (BBC).

Arrangements Always for films, he produced and arranged numerous recordings of classical operas (Bellini, Puccini, Verdi, Rossini, Mozart) and symphonies (Mendelsohn, Delibes...).In 2007 he wrote the Arrangement of the Concerto of Paganini for the Royal Harmony of Guides, soloits Lorenzo Gatto.

Dance

Dance: Avi Kaiser asked him to work for his his dance project " Le départ de Marseille" a commission of the Stadttheater Remscheid.

Tap-guitar

The instrument played by Daniel is the tap-guitar or tiptar. Daniel met Emmett Chapman in 1980, and made the first steps with him. Later he developped tools and methods to improve reading and playing. He wrote a method book "My Space, My Time", and leads the "E-Tap" "European Tap Seminar", part of the Académie d'été de Wallonie where is was joined by prominent t-g players as Frank Jolliffe, Wolfgang Daiss, K.Wagner, Jim Lampi, Markus Reuter, Teed Rockwell, Jim Wright, Randy Strom, Kay Kurosawa, and many others.

Sangit Academy

In 1991 he created, with Pierre Narcisse, the Sangit Academy of Classical Indian Music where he teaches now regularly in order to develop his "My Space, My Time" pedagogical concept. There he was joined in 1991 by Pandit Ashok Pathak with whom he studied the Indian raga system. Later on he studied the related pedagogy with Dhruba Ghosh who was to join the Academy in 1997. With this experience, Daniel wrote "Practice of Indian Music". Many masters (including Pandit Jasraj, Rita Ganguli, Subroto Roy Chowdury, Ronu Majumdar, Kala Ramnath, Harsh Wardan, Purbayan Chatterjee, Indrayudh Bose) visit now the school regularly. Daniel has accompanied Ashok Pathak, Rita Ganguli, Shaila Piplapure and Gauri Guha in concert. He wrote a tabla method with Sandip Banerjee, bansuri with Harsh Wardhan.