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I am a member and co-founder of a French theater company, Les Arts Maniak (French) and I make the musics of our plays.
To make these musics, I mostly use virtual orchestra instruments, rather than my usual instruments.
This play will be first introduced in October 2016 by Les Arts Maniak (French). It's a free adaptation of the 1965 movie "The collector" from William Wyler. The musics presented above are a first glimpse of the original soundtrack that will be played during the show.
The music is somewhat gloomy on purpose, as it is a suspenseful play. Yet, I am trying to keep it melodic, rather than making it simply atmospheric.
In 2010, Les Arts Maniak (French) played this piece based on the 1945 novel "The ghost and Mrs Muir" by R.A. Dick, aka Josephine Leslie, and on the 1947 film from Joseph L. Mankiewicz.
The story: one year after her husband prematurely died, a young widow, Lucy Muir, moves with her maidservant to a charming cottage by the sea. She finds out that the house is haunted by the ghost of its former owner, Captain Daniel Gregg. Unimpressed, the young lady starts an odd relationship with the ghost...
For this rather soulful play, full of humorous dialogues, I composed several themes that punctuate various key moments of the story. I had fun writing sad tunes (Lucy dies), melancholic, light-hearted or quirky tunes (like the western-like one). On top of the musics, I recorded several tracks for sound effects (typewriting machine, car, train, bell...) and voice-overs (dialogues or ghostly laughters).
Flagadelle & Pikaouette is a children's show written in 2010 by David Carruezco.
David asked me to write the musics for his show, from drafts of songs he had thought about. I kept his lyrics and wrote the musics, either with some inspiration from what he had done, or by starting from scratch. I even reused one of the musics I wrote for his show (the song "Vilinpabo") for my Rock Album "Next" (Renegades). Of course, I sing myself the versions presented here, but during the actual show, only the music is played and the actors sing live on stage.
I had the opportunity to see the show, and there were many children in the audience, paying close attention to the magical story of the play. A very nice tale, and I'm very proud to have been musically part of it.
In june 2008, The company introduced its own version of Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw. The company adapted the play by mixing dialogues from the film My Fair Lady by George Cukor and the original book by Shaw, which is not as funny as the motion picture. The play was pretty successful. Many people were baffled by the actors who played their characters with enthusiasm and talent, and were even compared to professionals, although they're merely amateurs, which is a very nice compliment indeed. More than 400 persons came to see the play, making this play their most successful to date!
For this play, I made several musics, including a few ones with lyrics (presented here in their instrumental version). I enjoyed myself a lot composing these tunes. I made all the musics and sound effects for the play.
In May 2007, the company rehearsed an adaptation of the French 17th century play L'avare (The Miser) from Molière and entitled it Le cauchemar d'Harpagon (Harpagon's nightmare). The play was presented at an amateur festival near Paris, France, then was played again in October 2007 in front of students aged 11 to 15, and played once more at another theater amateur festival in a nearby town in November 2007.
The soundtrack included a few famous musics (like the Austin Powers theme for instance), but also these 4 short pieces of music I composed for the play.
The first series of musics I composed for a play was for the adaptation of Agatha Christie's And then there were none by the company.
Somebody said it would be a good idea to have a simple tune, like a childish melody, that would play at various moments of the show. With this idea in mind, I have tried to write an easily rememberable melody, which I then declined in different versions to illustrate the action on stage.
This play has been presented six times at the Saint-Maur theater (in France, near Paris) in May 2006 during a theater amateur contest.