"Musical Objects, or the Shadow of Things", began as an exchange with my colleague and friend, the talented writer Lise Beninca when she was writer-in-residence at an Emmaus Centre.
Emmaus is a charitable association that collects items not wanted any more to sell them at really low prices. It's possible to find clothes and furniture there for next to nothing.
And as one can find everything from a fridge to a fine vintage fur coat, every weekend a cosmopolitan crowd made up of people from all walks of life fills the lanes of the great hangars that welcome a numerous public in search of the rare pearl.
During her residency at Emmaus, Lise had the idea of livening up the space by choosing ONE object at the end of each week to be displayed in a fridge converted into a showcase, with a text of one page to tell the story of the object. A moment of unexpected pure poetry.
I loved the idea, the texts and the content and form. I had hardly finished reading the first of these texts, "The peacock feather fan", the music was already in my head. When Lise discovered on the music stand of my piano what I had composed, inspired by the object and her text, she became excited about this unexpected extension of her work.
That is how Musical Objects came to be.
Over time, I have set to music several objects, to create a disparate gallery - an old pair of slippers, a denture, an old trunk, a glass, a rocking chair, a cradle...
Leaning over to listen to their story, I have learned that all the things around us have a a story to tell, their own sounds, their shadow, their light, their soul.
Their murmur.
Their song.

Anne Olga