Musicians ready to play to whims and whinnies
Odysseo’s five-piece band goes ‘with the flow’ created by the show’s equine stars
They play to the horses’ whims and whinnies, speeding up the music, slowing it down or improvising to match the action on the sprawling stage of Odysseo.
“A horse is not like a human being,” drummer Éric Boudreault says. “You have to adapt . . . you need to go with the flow.”
Odysseo by Cavalia is nothing short of a spectacle. With more than 60 horses, dozens of riders and acrobats, and a set that includes flowing water, a spinning carousel and a video backdrop three times the size of an IMAX screen, there are literally hundreds of moving parts. For the five-piece band that provides the live score, all this motion and the potential unpredictability of the show’s non-human stars means that no two nights are quite the same.
“The music is a little more organic so we can adjust with what’s going on onstage,” Boudreault adds. “You never know what’s going to happen.”
Perched in treehouse-like enclosures that flank either side of the stage, the musicians carefully watch everything below them. Their playing, after all, must exactly match the show’s action and they must always be in sync with one another.
The band follows an eclectic score by Michel Cusson that evokes every- thing from Spanish guitars to tribal drums to medieval lutes to interstellar symphonies. Still, they must always be ready for the unexpected.
When the action is fast, the music’s tempo increases; same when things slow. When something unplanned happens, such as a horse taking too long to enter or exit the stage, or a rider being thrown off a mount, the musicians improvise on a moment’s notice: feverish guitar, suspenseful percussion, a mournful violin solo. The music can never stop.
“There are very different moods that we have to underline,” bassist and band leader Raphael D’Amour says.
“The chord progressions are decided, but the intensity really varies.”
D’Amour calls the shots, talking to the others via headsets. He’s complemented by a trio of fellow Quebecers: Boudreault on drums, Serge Gamache on guitar and Louis-Pier Racicot on violin. Claudia Paganelli of Italy provides the show’s enchanting vocals.
A quarter of the time, D’Amour says, the musicians must improvise. He says the well-trained horses even listen for their cues.
All of this might sound like an unwelcome challenge, but the musicians love it. After all, things could get dull if you are playing the exact same parts for hundreds of shows.
“You’re not always doing the same gig every night,” Racicot says. “We have a lot of space to improvise too, so that’s pretty nice for a musician like me.”