Jazz Meets Classical

Delphine Deau — Prepare for Dowland

   Jazz
Jazz meets classical - Delphine Deau — Prepare for Dowland
  • Sunday July, 13th 2025
  • 3:00 PM
  • 38Riv
  • Full price : 22 €
    Reduced price : 17 €
    PJC member price : 17 €

For her first solo creation, Delphine Deau sets herself a major challenge: reimagining Renaissance works on prepared piano. The music of the English lutenist John Dowland, a real “coup de foudre” of recent semi-finished years, inspired her to create a work for solo piano. Around the “lute songs” written between 1597 and 1603, the pianist creates a space for free improvisation, far from her quartet habits where the drums propel the dance. Here, the space is different, time is suspended, and the textures of the prepared piano blend with Dowland's melodic power to extract all its poetry. With such limpid writing, John Dowland's pieces could almost be likened to jazz standards, with melody and harmony given over to the performer. Rather than staying within a framework of improvisation, Delphine opts for deconstruction to open up the playing space. These moments, both lyrical and rhythmic, are supported by the harmonic richness of the tools added, such as coins, screws, clothespins, safety pins... In this world of sound, form only appears when it becomes necessary, and we then catch a glimpse of melody in the bend of a soaring left hand or in the bell-like sounds of a transformed string. As well as becoming an augmented instrument, the piano is also deliberately brought back to its innermost nature: percussion!

JAZZICS - Jazz meets classical
Every Sunday afternoon, 38Riv offers a unique program celebrating the meeting of jazz and classical music. From a revisiting of the great repertoires, to a meeting of instruments from different eras, to improvisational explorations, this new rendezvous creates unprecedented bridges between musical worlds.
The event is accompanied by a gourmet menu featuring coffee, tea, lattes, cocktails and pastries.

Delphine Deau: prepared piano

Agenda PARIS JAZZ CLUB

Agenda July/August 2025

The Jazz Guide of Paris and its region
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