Gaspar Claus - “Birth & Death Of A.” (Feat. Sufjan Stevens, Pedro Soler, The National’s Bryce Dessner, & More)

In 2012, the French cellist Gaspar Claus asked 11 musicians to partake in a one-time-only collaborative performance piece that took place over the course of a night at Littlefield in Brooklyn. Claus’ invitation list included Sufjan Stevens, Pedro Soler, Bryce Dessner, Jessie Stein (of The Luyas), David Moore (of Bing & Ruth), Rémi Alexadre (of Sys Matters and Shorebilly), Ben Greenberg (of the Zs and the Men), Jessica Larrabee & Andy LaPlant (of She Keeps Bees), Emil Bognar-Nasdor (of Dawn Of Humans), Mauro Remiddi (of Porcelain Raft), and Claus’ own sister, Clara who performed alongside Dessner. The 11 musicians performed 11 songs, and the result of the project is One Night Stand, an LP made available through the French crowdsourcing site Microcultures. Derrick Belcham of the French media house La Blogothèque filmed the 70-minute performance and made short live videos of each song. Today, we’re premiering the video for the droning, nine-minute composition “Birth & Death Of A.” Each musician gets a short cameo in the video (you can spot Stevens about midway through), but the ocean of sound that they create together is all dependent on Claus’ tightly-wound, enchanting performance.