Les Effaceurs
(2010-11)
for solo guitar
I. Coltan II. Bambenga III. Safari IV. Flesh V. Uchawi
commissioned by Maarten Stragier & the Boston Classical Guitar Society
premiered in part by Maarten Stragier on 19 Feb 2011 at Hingham Library, Hingham (I.), 3 April 2011 at Gore Place, Waltham & 28 June 2012 (III.) at Brown Hall, New England Conservatory, Boston, MA, USA
reviewed in Press
score available from the composer
duration: 20’
genre: Solo
category: Esoterica
Les Effaceurs, a five-movement suite for guitar, darkly meditates on a particularly gruesome and bizarre genocide during the deadliest conflict since WWII, the Second Congo War (1998-2003). Paid to ‘clear’ areas of Congo’s North Kivu province for foreign mineral exploration and extraction, a group of locals known as les effaceurs (the erasers) hunted down and cannibalized the indigenous pygmy population. This was not just economically motivated: eating pygmy flesh was believed to imbue the devourer with magical powers…
