CD..SILLAGE (2015)
Véronique PIRON, shakuhachi / Lydia DOMANCHI, piano
Invited: Fumie HIHARA*, koto-voice
Recorded and mixed by Gérard Lhomme, studio and production Gimini 22 (Fr), 2015
CD available HERE
Compositions in duet and trio :
KUMOI JISHI / TSUKIYO* (on Soundcloud) / JUSTE AVANT L'AUBE (Before Dawn)
SOIR CALME, ACCOURENT LES VAGUES (Quiet night, Rush the waves) (on Soundcloud)
CHAR DE LUNE* (Moon Chariot) (on Soundcloud) / SILLAGE (Wake) / OHOSHI-SAMA*
BRISE LEGERE, PLUME AU VENT (Light breeze, Feather in the wind) (on Youtube)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 
* Patrice Verdure, Le Cri de l'Ormeau (l'Echo de la culture en Côtes d'Armor, Brittany) oct.2015 p.5
"I have thought for a long time that a convincing pairing of piano and shakuhachi would be difficult to achieve - the one a child of the industrial revolution with its high tension steel-strung frame, the other distinctly agrarian by comparison. The piano’s power and brilliance might easily overwhelm the sonic subtlety that is the hallmark of the shakuhachi’s language.
From the outset, it is clear that this will not be the case with Sillage. Track 1, a version of the honkyoku classic, Kumoi Jishi, brings immediately to mind Lewis Rowell’s lovely observation that Japanese music treasures the ‘studied avoidance of simultaneity’ for its ‘illusion of multiple superimposed tonal images’ - a beautiful effect, and one that sounds startlingly original on the piano. Such a stark beginning makes a statement about the album as a whole - that the shakuhachi is not going to fall over into a Western style folk code, and that the piano and its heritage are not going to dominate or lead the proceedings.
Sillage is an album of eight pieces that are neither fully through-composed nor completely improvised: a wise decision given the manifest tensions that exist between the two primary instruments. Instead, the three artists (the koto player Fumie Hihara joins Piron and Domancich on three of the eight tracks) have established a number of mutually credible sonic regions from which they have been able to build their varied collection of pieces.
....... What is clear, however, is the sympathy between the two lead performers - that they want to be in that room together, exploring. One can only hope that they continue to do so, working their way towards an unlikely goal that could be very compelling indeed."
* Michael McInerney, lecturer in music, composer, pianist, shakuhachi player, Plymouth University (England)
full article in: ESS Newsletter 2015 Vol2 p.56/57 (European Shakuhachi Society)