"The news fell like a cleaver: Gasner Raymond, journalist at Le Petit Samedi Soir, found murdered in Brêches, near Leogane. He was only 23 years. The dictator who must have ordered the assassination or benefitted from the crime, was only 24 years old. The system maybe wanted to give a gift - his birthday is July 3 – to the young dictator, the head of the young Gasner who, before his assassination was investigating the miserable conditions of the Cement Workers of Haiti. "Source: The Chapeauteur.

Historical figure and close friend of Dany Laferrière, Gasner Raymond is one of the main characters of the Laferrière’s novel The Cry of the Mad/Crazy Birds. Before knowing this novel, I was already interested in bird songs of which I recorded several while traveling in France and here in the north of Quebec and in the Eastern Townships. I had already started to write a piece inspired by these songs. Beyond their intrinsic beauty, the songs of the birds were attractive to me because of what they reveal about social organization. These songs punctuate the day and indicate if they are fishing, trying to protect their young, etc.

It should be of no surprise that I was therefore immediately attracted by the title of the novel. It then became difficult for me to separate the title from the content of the novel itself. Without wanting a musical transposition of the novel, this piece is somewhat soaked in the atmosphere it gives off: oppression, emergency, fear, death, a few moments of contemplation.

A fifth player joins the quartet as a soloist. Would that musician play the last role of Gasner just before his execution? And who, then, acts the crazy birds who executed him? I let each of you imagine your own story.