Functioning of the orchestra

During our first residency on Handel's Messiah, we took an interest in the conditions in which this legendary oratorio was created: for which forces was it created, for which singers, for which hall, for which audience? How was it conducted? Did Handel have a baton? Did he play the organ or the harpsichord? How was the music sung? How important was improvisation in the Baroque period? At what tempo was this work played? All these questions open up a multitude of possibilities: what choices should we make? How should we present to a modern audience music that had a completely different function, and a completely different context?
 Let's make no mistake, our reading of the past is a resolutely contemporary one... how could it be otherwise?
   
Historically informed conducting

The famous Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians defines the three functions of modern orchestral conducting: 1) the conductor beats time with his hands or a baton, 2) the conductor makes interpretative choices which he implements during rehearsals and the concert, 3) the conductor participates in the administration of the musical ensemble. Has this always been the case? Curiously, this subject was neglected by the Baroque movement, which only marginally questioned the hierarchical organisation of the orchestra and its management.
Music has been beaten since the Middle Ages. But beating was simpler: the singer had to indicate the division of time, usually with just two gestures: raising or lowering his arm. The ‘bar-beater’ did not give the entrances to his musicians, nor did he instil the character or spirit of the music, and the music director was often a different person from the bar-beater.
So it's hardly surprising that Handel preferred to stop beating time and sit at the organ, guiding his musicians much more precisely by playing the organ! There is no prestige in beating time. That's not the point.
   
Shared artistic direction

By freeing the group from the vision of a single person, Liberati gives each musician the opportunity and responsibility to present his or her art directly.
In this way, the musicians come face to face with the audience, without an intermediary. Their communication is based on listening to each other, adding many sensory dimensions to the single visual contact usually exploited. Breathing together, finding a common movement and character, bringing the musical discourse to life and moving, all these elements are grasped collectively. During the rehearsals, the artists work with their eyes closed, trying to find ways of connecting with each other.
They all feel the mechanisms of the propagation of movement through the group, the influences of their direct neighbours, the passage of information as it exists in groups of animals (shoals of fish, migratory birds, etc.). They become aware of their own responsibilities, of the times when their role is to lead or to follow. The times when they are allowed to suggest or, on the contrary, respond to a musical proposal. As actors committed to the work at every moment, they need to keep their ears and hearts wide open, available to every voice that emerges.
   
Organiser l'orchestre

Inspirés par la richesse de leurs premières expériences musicales, les artistes ont commencé à réfléchir à la manière de gérer la vie de l'ensemble avec les différents membres de l'orchestre. Ce changement de paradigme, à l'heure où l'inconscient collectif dans tous les domaines (politique, artistique, etc.) est rassuré par une figure de proue, est d'une puissance considérable : la « carte de visite » de l'ensemble ne repose plus sur une personnalité, mais sur la multiplicité des individus et des forces en présence. Le collectif devient une entité en soi.
Fin 2024, un groupe de musiciens se réunit pour étendre cette expérience artistique à la structure même de l'ensemble et à son fonctionnement administratif et logistique : Liberati est né. Le défi d'étendre le jeu collectif à tous les domaines (administration, production, diffusion, etc.) est de taille. Est-il possible, à l'instar des animaux sociaux (certains insectes, poissons, mammifères, oiseaux), de sortir des modes hiérarchiques et d'imaginer un autre type d'organisation qui permette de penser différemment les relations entre les membres d'un groupe et d'appliquer collectivement ces valeurs partagées ?
   
Organisational principles
 
The aim is to operate in a decentralised way. Inspired by the principles of holacracy, the group is self-organised into different circles, which are themselves made up of different roles. There are 6 circles (governance, stewardship, communication, artistic, scores and texts, visual impact). Cooperative processes are implemented to give everyone the opportunity to take initiatives and share them. Every decision is discussed by the group, according to a precise operating charter. Meetings are organised at a pace that suits the functioning of each circle, and the various tasks to be carried out are divided between the members. Roles can change at any time, and each member can choose to take on more or less responsibility depending on his or her ability to commit. 
Where a standard orchestra would entrust administrative and artistic issues to different employees, carefully compartmentalising them, Liberati chooses instead to have the artists themselves invest in the running of the ensemble, and thus acquire greater awareness from every point of view. Where the structure of an orchestra would rest on the sole responsibility of its conductor, Liberati chooses instead to rely on the abundance of collective intelligence and the complementarity of minds to define a unified and unprecedented working direction. 
This work of concerted intelligence gives rise to a different system: a liberating approach whose foundations are political and whose manifestations are artistic, and which has structural consequences for the sound of the orchestra and the musicality of the ensemble. It gives new meaning to the very notion of a “concert”, as an experience of artistic and human collaboration. So we're very curious to know whether audiences and programmers will feel as liberated to embrace this movement that's changing habits as we artists feel to be its instigators. 
   
Johanne Maître, Marie Lerbret and Marc Meisel