PERFUME & MUSIC
published on 2023-08-22From October to November 2023, Osmoart will carry out three olfactory events in connection with perfume and music within the cultural center of the Soupetard district in Toulouse.
Olfactory concert: “Flowers of the seasons”: Friday, November 10, 2023
With this masterpiece dedicated to the four seasons (spring, summer, autumn and winter), the famous Italian maestro Antonio Vivaldi composes this grandiose universal hymn to nature and climatology with all the genius of his expressive virtuoso musical language.
What we know less well is that the composer took great care in linking his music to the writing of sonnets with respect to each season.
Etymologically, the word sonnet derives from the language of sound, like the tune of a sung melody or a little song.
Pierre Bénard will perfume these airs by offering a perfumer’s touch of an olfactory interpretation of these four poems.
In this exercise, it is no longer perfumes that will accompany symphonic tableaux but an orchestra, that of the Toulouse Chamber Orchestra, and a perfumer-creator who will accompany the words of its author.
Perfume and music at the service of poetry.
A final olfactory score will close this ephemeral concert with the broadcast of “Lilith, dark heroine”, the soliflore perfume by Pierre Bénard to which La oración del torero, opus 34 (The Prayer of the Bullfighter) will be connected, music chosen, inspired and performed by the Toulouse chamber orchestra..
La Prière du torero is a quartet by Joaquin Turina originally written for four lutes in 1926.
In 1927, Turina produced an adaptation for string orchestra.
The composer is inspired by the vision of a bullfighter praying in the chapel next to the arena.
Perfume as a work of the mind.
“Végétal, the olfactory and musical exhibition”
In the wake of the olfactory concert around the four seasons of Antonio Vivaldi, OSMOART will offer, from Wednesday October 11 to Wednesday November 29, 2023, an exhibition intimately linked to composition, fragrant and musical.
Nature inspires its composers.
“Végétal” is the name of one of the albums of French singer-songwriter Émilie Simon who received a music victory in 2007 for its creation.
This album, oriented towards the vegetable world, plays with words and organic or aquatic sounds, natural textures (water, wood, fire, stone) and the use of different modes of instrumental play.
Music inspires the perfumer.
Music lover, Pierre Bénard, perfumer-creator will present some olfactory representations of certain songs from the singer’s album.
“Emilie’s Végétal album is the musical memory that accompanied my studies as a student perfumer when I was in Grasse in 2006. From my various listenings, I had imagined fragrances. This multisensory work lends itself to this.
My olfactory research at the end of the study year was based on a centifolia rose accord accompanied by its song Rose Hybride de thé”.
“Listen to perfumes, breathe music”: Friday, November 17, 2023
In his short story “La nuit”, Guy de Maupassant writes “I no longer really knew if I was breathing music, or if I was hearing perfumes, or if I was sleeping among the stars. »
During this olfactory and sound conference, Pierre Bénard will propose to reveal the intimate link that exists between smell and hearing, two radically opposed senses, one chemical and the other physical.
The music-loving perfumer will reveal the close relationships that exist between the language of the perfumer and that of the musician; between the language of perfume and music.
We are particularly proud that our conference has been labeled “City for all”, the event label of Toulouse Métropole which guarantees the inclusion of all!
This olfactory conference will be transcribed in real time from the spoken word in French sign language.
