Bérangère Maximin's music

Working out of her private studio since 2008, Bérangère Maximin has developed her own approach to sound art and electronic music, composing dense, immersive pieces with immediate impact. On six albums which have aroused international interest, she has revealed a taste for mixing disparate sounds together with a sense of detail, effusive, lyrical playings with the digital material and tight nuanced writing. Bérangère Maximin’s music engages the listener in consideration of space and textures. The sound ambivalence and its independence from its original source being at the centre of her work.

The composer has been released on Tzadik's Composer Series (USA), Sub Rosa's Framework (BE) and Crammed Discs' Made To Measure (BE). In 2017, she responded to the producer Craig Leon's invitation to take part in the re-activation of his Atlas Realisations label (UK) with a fifth electroacoustic series named Frozen Refrains which came out on vinyl in June of that year.

Her latest album named Land of Waves has been released on double vinyl on Berlin based label Karlrecords in June 2020.

The album has obtained a nomination to the French Grand Prix Lycéen des Compositeurs 2021 with the piece Off The Page.

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The year 2021 was mostly devoted to two long-play creations : Impacts I in partnership with éOle, Maison Salvan and Le Vent des Signes theatre (Toulouse, FR) and The Snov River commissioned by the Ina-GRM for their Multiphonies concert series that was premiered at Radio France's Grand Auditorium on October 31, 2021.

Bérangère Maximin has performed in venues such as London Hayward Gallery's Harmonic Series, NYC Roulette, Quebec Victoriaville's FIMAV, Paris Presences Electronique festival, Notre-Dame-de-Paris Cathedral's Crypt and Palais de Tokyo, Bordeaux and Strasbourg MOCA in France, Florence's Teatro Della Pergola, Bologna's Angelica festival in Italy, Bern's Dampfzentrale, Berlin Ausland and Charlottenburg Baptist Church, Swedish Push festival, London Cafe Oto as well as various concert halls, festivals and clubs across Europe and North America.

The composer has also obtained commissions and residence time at Paris' Ina-GRM (2010, 2011, 2012), Stockholm's EMS (2014), France's La Muse En Circuit (2014), Grim-Montévidéo (2010), IMEB Institute (2010). She also received a grant from the ‘Villa Medicis Hors Les Murs’ program in New York City (Cultures France, 2011).

In 2018 - 2020, Bérangère Maximin performed a solo concert at Hamburg Elbphilharmonie's ePhil series (DE), toured Eastern Europe for the first time : Riga Skanu Mezs, Budapest UH festival, Prague Shape's workshop, Graz Musikprotokoll (in duo with Fred Frith for the fifth time). She also played Paris digital arts and music event series Biennale Némo, Brussels Schiev Festival, Hamburg 4Fakultät concert series, Albi GMEA (FR), Maison Salvan (Toulouse, FR), Parken event series in Vienna (AT), LEM festival in Barcelona (S) and Akousma festival in Montréal (CA). She also had a concert-portrait during Tokyo Born Creative festival (JP). She gave a masterclass to the students in the composition class of the Conservatory of Paris (CRR) and the Astor Piazzolla Superior Conservatory of Music of Buenos Aires (AR), and played in trio with Fred Frith and Heike Liss for Frith's 70th birthday celebration at Instants Chavirés (FR).

Live practice first came to Berangere through John Zorn and his Tzadik label (USA) who gave her acousmatic work a warm welcome and released her debut album Tant Que Les Heures Passent (As Long As The Hours Go By) in the Composer Series in 2008. This gave her inspiration to start a parallel set of experimentation to her studio works which soon left a trace in the form of a collaborative album with brilliant musicians she met on the road : No One Is An Island featuring Christian Fennesz, Frédéric D. Oberland and Richard Pinhas at the guitar, and Rhys Chatham at the trumpet. This second series of compositions got released on Sub Rosa's Framework (Belgium) in limited CD and LP edition in 2012. The monolithic Infinitesimal quickly followed on the same series (2013, one of the 13 finest Ambient releases of the year for British Drowned in Sound Mag). The electronic piece in five movements describes a progressive transformation where only matters the physicality of the moment, it "slowly establishes internal logic, matching the way things make sense in your head even if you can't explain them." (Pitchfork). Her fourth album Dangerous Orbits released on the Belgian label Crammed Discs' Made To Measure series in May 2015 received a warm international feedback, "a menacing silvery growl, a muffled dubby pulse, a discomforting reminder that the universe does not at all belong to us" according to The Wire Magazine.

Direct links to the interviews and feature articles :

- ‘Frozen Refrains is Icy Ambient at Its Finest’ : feature on Bandcamp Daily’s Hidden Gem.

- 'There isn't much room for dreams nowadays' : Berangere Maximin interviewed for Shape Platform (Int)

- 'Deep Listening: Berangere Maximin interviewed' The Quietus (UK)

- 'Der Himmel donnert' Die Tageszeitung (DE)

- 'Bérangère Maximin vous présente ses 5 disques de musique expérimentale préférés' The Drone (FR)

- '200 Words: Bérangère Maximin' The Out Door (USA)

- 'Beyond The Limits of Language' 15questions.net (DE)

Radio interviews (in French)

- Radio Nova (2018)

- Tapage Nocturne, France Musique (2017)

- France Culture

- Atelier du son, Fance Culture

- France Musique

- 'Mon électro élastique ' Arte Radio

- Radio Libertaire (Paris).

Her creations are regularly broadcast on the radio and played in festivals, museums, concert venues and clubs : Paris - Notre Dame de Paris Cathedral's Crypt, Présences Electronique Festival, Palais de Tokyo, Maison de la Radio, Eglise St-Merri, Instants Chavirés, Maroquinerie, Auditorium St Germain, Ciné 104, Paris En Toutes Lettres festival, Paris Music Festival, Studio Galante, Batofar, Espace B, Glaz’art… France - Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg, Musée d'Art Contemporain de Bordeaux CAPC, Chabada, Mains d'Oeuvre, Le FiL, La Carène, Pannonica, Island Festival / CNEAI, I.Boat, Trinitaires, Théâtre du Périscope, Lieu Multiple, Musique Action festival, Mégaphone festival... Europe: Hayward Gallery's Harmonic Series (Southbank Centre, London, UK), Cafe Oto (London, UK), Fringe festival (Dublin, Ireland), Angelica festival (Bologna, IT), Teatro Della Pergola (Florence, IT), Golden Pudel (Hamburg, DE), Ausland (Berlin, DE), Charlottenburg Friedenkirsche (Berlin, DE), West Germany club (Berlin, DE), Neue Musik Köln/ Sound & Unsound Festival (DE), Push Festival (SE), Fylkingen Club (SE), Other Jazz (CH), Dampfzentrale (CH)… World - Musicacoustica festival (Beijing, China), NYC - Roulette, The Stone, Death by Audio, Issue Project Room, Zebulon, San Francisco and the Bay Area (2011) - Luggage Store, Kitsch Gallery, El Rio, Zoo…