Festival Opening Program. Timelessness

The legendary French ensemble Les Percussions de Strasbourg is one of the world’s leading contemporary music groups, having redefined the art of percussion and expanded its expressive possibilities for more than six decades. Founded in 1962, the ensemble has played a pivotal role in shaping contemporary music, inspiring the creation of more than 350 works by composers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Its repertoire ranges from landmark masterpieces of contemporary music to bold new experimental works. In the ensemble’s performances, percussion emerges not merely as a rhythmic foundation, but as a medium for exploring sound, movement, and innovative performance techniques.

At the Permainų Muzika (Music of Changes) Festival, Les Percussions de Strasbourg presents Timelessness, a project by Belgian composer and filmmaker Thierry De Mey. For more than three decades, De Mey has explored the intersections of music, dance, and cinema, placing particular emphasis on the performer’s body and gesture. In his work, the musician’s movement is not simply a means of producing sound—it becomes an integral part of the composition itself.

Timelessness is a kind of creative self-portrait, bringing together both earlier and newly composed works by Thierry De Mey. The composer describes the project as an artistic manifesto that seeks to restore the performer’s body to a visible and essential presence on stage. Here, the percussionists become not only musicians but also performers of movement. In one of De Mey’s best-known works, Musique de Tables, the only instruments are three tables, while the music is created through hands, fingers, fingernails, palms, and the subtlest gestures of the performers. Another work, Ticking Sound, invites listeners to experience time not as a mechanical measurement, but as a living process in which pulse, bodily movement, and sound merge into a single musical dramaturgy.