French musician duo to perform at concert featuring silent films from 1900s to 2010

Pune: French composer and pianist Robert Piéchaud spent an entire week researching Indian silent films at the National Film Archive of India (NFAI) last November with the aim of finding an inspiration for his new project.He is now touring various cities to perform his latest oeuvre, Moving Pictures, at the NFAI Auditorium on Law College Road today at 7pm.The ciné concert, organised by Alliance Francaise Pune, will feature rare Indian and French silent films as the visual backdrop against corresponding live music compositions. Piéchaud will share the stage with French multi-instrumentalist Stan de Nussac, whose musical territory includes saxophone, flute, clarinet and other instruments. The two had previously collaborated for various chamber music recitals and a ciné-concert series at the Auditorium du Louvre in Paris.“Last year, I was able to go through the whole collection of Indian silent films at NFAI to come up with selection for our programme. We decided to do a mix of Indian and French silent films for our one-and-a-half-hour show. The clips span various themes, transporting viewers to the captivating world of silent cinema,” said Piechaud.He said that that though much content was lost in time, he managed to find some gems of Indian cinema in the silent genre, spanning the early 1900s to more contemporary content from 2010. The selection includes films such as Dada Phalke’s Sinhastha Mela (1919), Baburao Painter’s Muraliwala (1927) and Kranti Kanade’s Idol (2010), along with some classic French picks such as G. Melies’ Le Voyage Dans La Lune (1902) and Alice Guy’s Americanise (1912).“While we have included the works of Dada Phalke, who is regarded the father of Indian cinema, we have showcased footage from Alice Guy, who is the first woman director,” said Piechaud, adding that he wishes to reach younger audiences with this show. Though this is Nussac’s debut in India, he is quite familiar with Indian classical music.“After our show, we usually have a Q&A session with the audience. Many times people ask me whether there is any Indian classical influence when I play the flute, and it surprises them when I say that I have been listening to the all greats of Indian classical music for a long time now,” said Nussac, who also has a master’s degree in ethnomusicology on P’ansori (traditional Korean song) from the Sorbonne University, Paris.Apart from music, Nussac interest includes Aikido, a modern Japanese martial art. He is also a practitioner of shiatsu, which is a form of Japanese bodywork based on concepts of traditional Chinese medicine, such as qi meridians. The duo will perform in a concert with a classical western repertoire organized by The Poona Music Society at Mazda Hall on December 3 at 7 pm.