ABOUT

French composer, trumpeter and ethnomusicologist Yohan Giaume has travelled the world, exploring the roots and intersections of music among the Americas, Europe and Africa. While in New Orleans, he discovered the music of 19th century Louisiana Creole composer and pianist Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869) who, like Giaume, travelled for much of his life, taking every opportunity to hear, study and absorb music from the cultures he encountered in Europe, the Caribbean and the Americas.

The parallel routes taken by Giaume and Gottschalk 200 years apart — and their mutual interest in Afro-Creole and vernacular music — inspired the birth of Whisper of a Shadow, a dialogue between the Romantic era and our contemporary world through an adventurous musical « conversation » between two composers from two eras and cultures.
In this first opus, imagined as a musical travelogue, Giaume weaves a marriage between the European musical world of the Romantic era and the African-American culture of New Orleans where this journey begins. The multicultural environment of 19th century New Orleans echoes through African-Creole melodies, opera arias, romantic poetry, rhythms of Congo Square and its Caribbean influences, brass bands, minstrel shows, gospel, and burial music, but also through lush jazz orchestrations sublimated by textures of chamber music.

Giaume collaborates with renowned musicians from both sides of the Atlantic with an emphasis on New Orleans based artist, Evan Christopher (who also co-directed with Yohan the compositional interpretations). Amongst the 23 artists on the project feature drummer Herlin Riley, trumpeter Nicholas Payton, bassist Roland Guerin, pianist Aaron Diehl and a French string quartet. Other special guest is poet Chuck Perkins; accented by Caribbean percussionists and singers as well as Louisiana based trombonists and tubists.