Cirque Du Soleil: Julie McInnes (vocals, acoustic guitar, tiple, cello); Toumany Kouyate (vocals, kora); Roxanne Potvin (vocals, flute, percussion); Elise Guay (vocals, bagpipe, shawm, recorder, crumhorn); Lei Qiang (erhu); Jean-Francois Cote (accordion, keyboards, programming, sampler); Stephanie Gariepy (soprano saxophone, tenor saxophone, keyboards); Vovo (percussion, sound effects).
The Cirque du Soleil franchise has produced many fine soundtracks. Among them is O, a show with water as its leitmotif. A play on the French word for water ("eau"), O reflects the always clever and artful minds of this contemporary dance/circus troupe.
O opens with "Jeux d'Eau," a classically influenced adagio movement that features a contemplative cello melody and refined piano chords. From here, the soundtrack picks up steam with "Mer Noire," a piece that begins with a small vocal choir, then quickly transforms into an exhilarating overture replete with pounding drum rhythms and edge-of-your-seat string acrobatics. In the spirit of past Cirque du Soleil shows, O also borrows from various ethnic styles. Predictably, "Africa" blends various genres from the continent together with a vocal from an African native. Similarly, "Gamelan" invokes the sophisticated melodicism and modal underpinnings of Indonesian music while "Terre Aride" celebrates the exotic flavors of the Middle East. Overall, this is electrifying music; each composition bursts with color and variety.
