leroux interview

An Interview with PhilippeLeroux

Yiorgos VassilandonakisMusic DepartmentUniversity of California, Berkeley104 Morrison HallBerkeley, California 94720 [email protected]

Among the most respected French contemporaryartists of his generation, Philippe Leroux (seeFigure 1) is a widely performed and commissionedcomposer, as well as one of the most sought-outcomposition teachers in Paris. Born on 24 September1959 in Boulogne sur Seine, France, Mr. Lerouxgraduated from Paris Conservatoire Superieur,where he studied with Ivo Malec, Claude Ballif,Pierre Schaeffer, and Guy Reibel. In parallel, he alsostudied with Olivier Messiaen, Franco Donatoni,Betsy Jolas, Jean-Claude Eloy, and Iannis Xenakis. In1993, he was awarded the Prix de Rome, a two-yearresidency at the Villa Medici in Italy.

His oeuvre of over 40 works encompasses sev-eral genres: symphonic, electroacoustic, electronic,and vocal and chamber music. (See Tables 1 and2.) These works have been commissioned by suchprestigious institutions as the French Ministryof Culture, IRCAM, the Koussevitsky Founda-tion, the Radio France Symphony Orchestra, theSudwestfunk Baden-Baden, INA-GRM, EnsembleIntercontemporain, BIT 20, Icare and Ictus, the SanFrancisco Contemporary Music Players, Les Percus-sions du Strasbourg, and several other French andforeign institutions. His music has been featuredin international festivals, including the FestivalDonaueschingen, Presences de Radio France, Bath,Agora, Roma-Europa, Nuove Synchronie (Milan),Musica, Stockholm ISCM, Barcelona, Musiques enScene (Lyon, France), Manca, Bergen, Tempo (Berke-ley), BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, and others.

He has received numerous awards, including theHerve Dugardin Prize (1994), the SACEM award(2003), and most recently the Arthur Honegger Prize2007 for his contribution to French contemporarymusic.

Philippe Leroux has taught the IRCAM year-long composition course (2001–2006) and hastaught at McGill University (2005–2006). He hasbeen a guest lecturer at Bergen Grieg Academy;Columbia University; University of California,

Computer Music Journal, 32:3, pp. 11–24, Fall 2008c© 2008 Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Berkeley; Fondation Royaumont; the AmericanConservatoire in Fontainebleau; and the Paris andLyon Conservatoires Superieurs, among others. Hehas written numerous articles on contemporarymusic, and his work Continuo(ns) was the subject ofa study published by Editions L’Harmattan (Vilella1999). In 2007, he was composer-in-residence withthe Orchestre Nationale de Lorraine.

His long association with IRCAM from the per-spective of both his pedagogical role and his expe-rience in realizing several projects there, combinedwith his unique approach to the use of technologyas a compositional tool totally integrated withinhis own compositional process and thinking, allowshim a unique perspective on the present and futureof computer and electro-acoustic music creation.

Although I have known Philippe Leroux well forseveral years, having studied composition with himin Paris for a few of those years and having enjoyedmany insightful conversations with him, I was par-ticularly interested in spending some time exploringhis thoughts on music in the directed context of aninterview. What was intended to be a single sessionturned into two sessions, separated by six monthsand an ocean. Our first meeting took place in March2006 at his house in Aulney-sous-Bois, a quietsuburb north of Paris, where Mr. Leroux lives withhis wife and two young children. In October 2006,this time at my apartment in Berkeley, a secondfollow-up session took place, after the premiere ofhis new work De La Texture by the San FranciscoContemporary Music Players. Both times, Philippewas insightful, witty, and extremely generous withhis time. We spoke in French, because I wanted tocapture Philippe’s unique way of expression in hisnative tongue, and I later translated the interviewinto English, trying to capture and preserve as muchof his personal way of expression as possible.

Vassilandonakis: Shall we start at the beginning ofit all? You belong to a generation of composers thatdid not grow up with technology available to them,at least not in the way that younger generations areexposed to it now. How did you get initiated?

Vassilandonakis 11

Figure 1. Photograph ofPhilippe Leroux (credit:Danielle Androff).

Leroux: Well, yes, we did not have laptops and cellphones as kids, but when I was growing up, audiotechnology was starting to spread into middle-classhomes. My older brother had a Revox G36 tubetape recorder, an antique, on which I made my firstattempts at tape splicing. That got me interested inlistening to electroacoustic music records, whichwere actually not hard to find at the time, and Ireally liked them, especially Francois Bayle. LaterI enrolled at Conservatoire National Superieur deMusique de Paris (CNSM) in Pierre Schaeffer’sclass.

Vassilandonakis: That sounds very much un-like the beaten path of composition training.So, technology came before counterpoint andharmony?

Leroux: I would say concurrently. I did get all thetraditional training, but I was lucky to be exposedto an environment where multiple approaches andinfluences were encouraged. I had access to anelectronic studio, and I took advantage of it.

Vassilandonakis: You also caught the wave ofthe spectral school. How did it influence yourdevelopment?

Leroux: It would be pointless to deny the influenceof the spectral school on my music, especiallygiven the time and place of my formative yearsas a composer. It was almost impossible to notbe influenced by the spectralists, because theirapproach was very fresh and exciting when it camealong. I have great admiration for Gerard Grisey andTristan Murail.

Vassilandonakis: Yet, there is more to it, isn’t there?

Leroux: There was a lot more going on in Paris thanjust spectral music. I have been greatly influenced bymusique concrete and Pierre Schaeffer’s notion of the“musical object.“ Also, Xenakis has also influencedme a lot, especially his work on mathematicsand physics formulas. And Ligeti, for his work ontextures and Francois Bayle, for his music of fixedsounds. From the younger composers of that period,I was also impressed by Michael Levinas, especiallyhis orchestral piece Ouverture pour une fete etrange,which has given me a unique vision of the orchestra.

Vassilandonakis: You are suggesting approachesto composition that fall outside the more-or-less traditional practice of manipulating pitchand rhythmic cells. You are clearly attracted tocomposing directly with sound, as opposed to arepresentation of sound.

Leroux: Absolutely. This comes directly fromworking in the studio. Generating sounds withsynthesizers gives you a lot of insight into thestructure of sound. Equally influential was, ofcourse, the work of Xenakis and Ligeti on sonicmasses.

Vassilandonakis: Another important aspect of yourmusic seems to be the perpetual, yet very tightlycontrolled, transformation of your musical material

12 Computer Music Journal

Table 1. List of Works by Philippe Leroux Containing Electronics

Title Year Instrumentation

Apocalypsis 2005 four singers (two sopranos, mezzo-soprano and baritone), 16 instruments,and real-time electronics

Voi(Rex) 2002 amplified female voice, six instruments, and real-time electronicsM.E. 1999 fixed-media electronicsM 1997 two pianos, two percussion, and real-time electronicsImage a Rameau 1995 four MIDI wind controllers, or two MIDI keyboard players controlling four

synthesizersLa Guerre du Faire 1992 fixed-media electronicsHommage a Andrei Roublev 1992 fixed-media electronicsTournoi 1989 fixed-media electronicsLa Vide et la Vague 1986 fixed-media electronicsIntercession 1981 fixed-media electronics

in ways that are easily perceivable. I get the sensethat every aspect of the material is used to its fullextent, and yet the music still manages to feel freeand almost improvisational. How do you do it?

Leroux: There are several things. First of all, I wishto engage the listener in the unfolding of the music.I try to make sure that the listener can follow whatis going on by creating an evolution of elementsin a continuous fashion. Secondly, I place myselfnot only as a composer, but also as a listener in theprocess of active listening to sequences of music.And by continuously listening to the material, Ifix a lot of things as a result to my responses as alistener, which gives a very natural aspect to thesonic sequences.

Vassilandonakis: It is interesting that you men-tioned “continuous fashion.” Linear evolution andcontinuously morphing sound seem to be importantto you. There is a perpetual movement of sound inyour works, both in the vertical (pitch) space, aswell as the temporal space, and the physical space.

Leroux: Yes, it is by studying sound that I realizedthat sound is never static but always evolves intime in some aspect, even when this change isimperceptible. This notion of perceptual motion hasinfluenced me a lot, and I have integrated it in alllevels of construction in my music.

Vassilandonakis: This interest of yours in continu-ity and transformation is not limited to what goes

Table 2. List of Recordings by Philippe Leroux

Leroux, M. Voi(Rex), Plus loin, M. 2004. Audio compactdisc. Paris: Nocturne NTCD 358.

Leroux, M. 1994. (d’) Aller, AAA, Souffles, Ial. Audiocompact disc. Paris: Grave GRCD 13.

Leroux, M. 1993. Air. Audio compact disc. Vandoeuvre,France: Vandoeuvre 9508.

Leroux, M. 2000. Continuo(ns), Fleuve, Air-Re, PPP,Phonie douce. Audio compact disc. Paris: MFA 216005.

Leroux, M. N.d. Histoires anciennes. Recorded on L’Artde la guitare contemporaine. (Caroline Delume, guitar.)Audio compact disc. Paris: Concord ARN 60439.

Leroux, M. N.d. Je brule, dit-elle un jour a un camarade.Audio compact disc. Paris: Harmonia Mundi ED 13019.

Leroux, M. M. 1998. Audio compact disc. Paris: IRCAMCD 008.

Leroux, M. 1998. PPP. Audio compact disc. Paris:MOTUS CD M298004.

Leroux, M. N.d. M. E. (excerpts). Recorded on CD-ROMMusique electro acoustique: Faire, entendre, connaıtre.Paris: Hyptique.

Leroux, M. N.d. Voi(Rex). Interactive CD/DVD. Paris:IRCAM Project Musique Lab 2.

on within a piece, but also across different works,and in several levels. It is well known that the titlesof some of your pieces form a phrase. . .

Leroux: . . . yes, which is known only to me. Themajority of my seemingly mysterious titles willeventually chain together into a phrase of around

Vassilandonakis 13

thirty works, which I will not unveil until thoseworks are all finished, provided I live long enoughto complete it, that is. It is a sort of semantic gameon one level, but also, it manifests my interestin leaving a unified body of work, a completepicture of who I am. It will all make sense oneday.

Vassilandonakis: How do you think about time,both musical and physical? There seem to beplaces in your music where repetitive figures orprocess-based passages intentionally “distort” theperception of time. I have a feeling that nothing istoo short or too long. How do you do it? Is it justintuition, or is there a secret?

Leroux: I imagine an elastic time, a little likethe one described by the Navajo Indians, a timethat comprises fulgurant accelerations that can befollowed by periods of temporal pauses (lulls). Ilisten to time. What takes me the longest in theprocess of composing is to listen and re-listen towhat I just wrote in the time frame of the piece.

Vassilandonakis: How long do you typically spendworking on a piece? You’ve mentioned that youwere working for 20 months on a 20-minute piece.How do you sustain interest and energy, and howdoes such a long time spent on a single project affectits quality?

Leroux: I try to spend as much time as I can witheach piece before letting it go into the world, soto speak. That allows me to re-read, to correct, torefine the details, to add little things that enrich themusical discourse in a manner that allows for asmany levels of perception of the work as possibleduring the process of composing. I like to have aprofound understanding of the piece; it is a dailytwo-way communication that I sustain with it. Thatallows me to get to compositional levels that are justnot possible to attain when you compose somethingfast. Then again, having said that, in the real world,some works are written a lot faster than that.

Vassilandonakis: Tell me more about the semanticsof the titles. They are always unusual. There areoften multiple meanings and ways they can be read,even a sonic aspect in the way they sound. Most,

if not all, of this gets lost in translation, and yet Iwould be very interested to hear your take on it. Aretitles springboards, do they come after the piece, arethey music themselves even, or do they just describea process or thinking?

Leroux: Each title possesses at least three levelsof meaning. As you said, there is a literal level ofmeaning, one that makes reference to somethingelse, another piece (of mine) or that of someone else’s,the sense that comes from the phonemes per se.

Vassilandonakis: And then, there is also a stronglinguistic aspect in the way you make music. Youseem to like using text a lot, and you have writtenextensively for the voice. I am especially attractedto the way you find technical ways and conceptualmeans of expression to realize and enhance ideasderived from the text.

Leroux: When I was younger I wrote a lot, and laterI decided not to write anything other than music,which tells you that the text is always there likean omnipresent background. My literary culture isthat of the great classics authors and philosophers.I am familiar with modern literature, but my workand my two children do not leave me much timeto follow it as closely as I would like to. I havealso studied the texts of many different religioustraditions and particularly orthodox theology, whichhas enriched me a great deal.

Vassilandonakis: And where there is text, there isalso some form of dramatic structure present, right?

Leroux: Naturally. Even in something as simple asa sequence of two chords, there is drama, meaningthat this notion is enclosed in any musical action.For me, drama is the moment that the direction isrealized but it is never sealed. Nothing is definitelysealed. There is drama everywhere in my music,and at the same time one thing is always put toperspective by another thing. That is why I am stillasking myself if opera is a genre that suits me. I willanswer that question in the years to come.

Vassilandonakis: You seem to import many con-cepts from other art forms. I assume you havedevised some kind of linking mechanism, a processof transformation of ideas from other genres to the


Figure 2. Transformation ofWacom tablet data inOpenMusic forApocalypsis (2005).

musical domain. Are there models you import, or isit a random process?

Leroux: No, it is not random at all. I am veryinterested in models, and I explore this idea of“importing” as you called it constantly in mymusic. I seek to approximate the most naturalmodels, whether they are human or tree-like, orcome from the constitution of matter or soundbehavior. (In this case, I am influenced by Xenakis.)The models that are closest to me are without adoubt those that come from human gestures.

Vassilandonakis: Are you referring to parts ofVoi(Rex), where the singer is writing words in spaceand the sound diffusion trajectories are formingletters of the alphabet?

Leroux: That is a good example, but I have aneven better one. For Apocalypsis, I used a Wacomtablet to capture certain letters of the alphabetin my own handwriting, and then I manipulatedthe resultant data in OpenMusic, turning it intopitch/rhythm patterns that were then manipulatedfurther by either interpolation or by being mappedinto different scales of pitch and rhythmic material.(See Figure 2.) That is exactly what we were talkingabout: Capturing a human gesture (in this case,my own handwriting) and turning it into a musicalgesture. I have always tried to translate movementin my music. As Saint Augustine said, “Music isthe art of the right movement.” And this movementfinds its origins in the gestures of the human body orthe human psychological behavior. I use the physical

Vassilandonakis 15

Figure 3. Introduction toVoi(Rex).

aspect of these gestures to make the listener sensewhere they come from, and also to enlarge the fieldof the traditional concert space.

This action then creates an additional connec-tion between the physical world and the musicalmaterial. The gesture is prolonged into the space,and the space is written into the score. One can goon creating associations between such actions adinfinitum. In Apocalypsis, I took the spatializationpattern of sound (pattern of sound movement in asurround sound speaker system) from Voi(Rex) (seeFigure 3), which is in itself a sonic drawing intospace of the word: lumiere (light) and transformedit into a musical sequence by translating it intopitches and rhythms. (See Figure 4.) This becomesa quite intricate process, but it supports the way Iwork, in the sense that there are multiple layers ofmeaning and complex associations.

Vassilandonakis: The connection between Voi(Rex)and Apocalypsis is certainly a special one that Iwould like to explore with you further, yet it is onlyone of many instances of your pieces that are con-nected to or derived from each other. Is this becauseyou feel that a particular concept needs to be takeneven further than the confines of a single piece?

Leroux: Sometimes, I like to re-incarnate the sameideas in a different sonic environment, as in thecase of M (for two pianos, two percussions, andelectronics), which became m′M for orchestra. Othertimes, as with Voi(r)ex and Apocalypsis, it acts morelike a compositional concept. How can I use thecompositional method of one piece to generate asecond piece?

Vassilandonakis: Let’s talk about Apocalypsis.

Leroux: While composing Voi(Rex), I started tomake notes at the bottom of each score page,documenting the musical operations being carriedout. This step-by-step chronological identificationof the composing process was used so I could tracemy steps while working on the piece, and also asa way to scan and check things over an extendedperiod of gestation of this piece. Without knowingit, I had invented a new way of reflecting and actingupon my materials.

Also, between 2003–2006, my work becamethe subject of a multi-disciplinary research projectcrossing musicology and cognitive anthropology, ledby Nicolas Donin, Jacques Theureau, and SamuelGoldszmidt. Their goal was to investigate the


Figure 4. Screen shot ofOpenMusic patch in whichspatialization of Voi(Rex)is transformed into pitchesand rhythms.

complexity of the human activity, and from theirperspective, musical composition was viewed asa particular human activity like any other, as onewould study the way in which a farmer plows hisfield. This approach appealed to me at a time when,in Europe particularly, we need to free ourselvesfrom this mystification concerning the concept ofcreator. They understood that artistic creation wasan extremely rich phenomenon. The time spenton the project gave me a kind of clarity aboutthe way I work, and triggered a process of auto-cognition that would last a long time. At the endof the project, which resulted in the publicationof a Hypermedia album on Voi(Rex), the conceptfor Apocalypsis was ripe within me as well, as the

idea of composing a new piece using the collectedinformation as its compositional material. It isessentially a documentation of the compositionalprocess of Voi(Rex).

The form of Apocalypsis follows chronologicallythe different compositional operations of Voi(Rex)and the main ideas of the large-scale plan and certainsteps along its realization. Apocalypsis is in sevenmovements, each modeled after the shape of one (ormore) letter(s) from the title of the work (I:A, II: p,III: o, IV: c, V:a-l-y-p-s, VI: i, VII: s). The proportionsof the movements are derived from an averagespectral centroid timbral analyzer patch (writtenin Max/MSP) of a time-compressed recording ofVoi(Rex). (See Figure 5.)

Vassilandonakis 17

Figure 5. Max/MSP timbralanalyzer patch.

Vassilandonakis: So the use of text and phonemesremains important conceptually.

Leroux: Absolutely. In fact, the text sung by thesingers is also based on a sort of compositional diarykept while composing Voi(Rex). To go even further,the 26 main chords of Voi(Rex) are mapped to the 26letters of the alphabet and generate new harmoniesfor Apocalypsis. This is achieved by interpolatingeach of the 26 chords with the shape of the letterof the alphabet corresponding to that number, andthen selecting the central chord of the interpolationprocess. (See Figure 6.) Then, I created a “tree ofchords” that classifies the derived chords accordingto their harmonicity/inharmonicity. Thus, the treebecomes a sort of hierarchical harmonic roadmap(see Figure 7).

Vassilandonakis: So, this would be an example ofusing a tree-like model. And, I am assuming thatthis meticulous procedure of transforming elementsof one piece into different elements of the other isnot limited to large-scale form, but it also penetratessmaller-scale parameters.

Leroux: Yes, it is a consistent compositional action.It seemed natural to me to morph patterns from onedomain to the other. For example, it seems quitelogical to visualize extracting the spatialization dataof the first movement of Voi(Rex) and converting itinto pitch data, so that what was the trajectory ofthe sound in space is transformed into a trajectoryof pitches, a melody, or, finding a way to associatethe shapes of the letters in the second movementwith melody profiles.


Figure 6. Screen shot ofOpenMusic chordinterpolator forApocalypsis (2005).

Vassilandonakis: How many of these relationshipsof processes and materials do you expect the listenerto perceive? Assuming they know both works well,of course.

Leroux: Although related, the two pieces sound ex-tremely different to me, both sonically and formally.I do not expect people to hear these procedures.They are for me to work with. The two piecesshare only a limited proportion of common soundmaterial, and they are built very differently. Onecan hope, however, that the listener will perceivethat they are both works by the same composer.

Vassilandonakis: Did you develop all the analyticaland generative software tools yourself?

Leroux: No, I was working with a technical as-sistant, as I have many times in the past. OnApocalypsis, it was Alexis Baskind, at IRCAM. Hisrole is to be perfectly up-to-date with the currentdevelopment of all the software. He knows it all.That would be practically impossible for a com-poser, because that demands too much time devotedto just that, and the composer has to save it forcomposing. At times, it happens that the assistantproposes original ideas for use of software. In sucha case, it becomes more of a collaboration. But it isalways the composer that makes the compositionaldecisions. In the case of my work, I make all soundsmyself, and the assistant helps me more with theconcert patches and with the creation of more

Vassilandonakis 19

Figure 7. “Chord tree” thatclassifies derived chordsaccording to their har-monicity/inharmonicityfor Apocalypsis.


complex tools for which I turn to him. This typeof work is extraordinary, because it allows one toexplore places where one would not be able to gootherwise.

Vassilandonakis: So do you not keep up with newsoftware?

Leroux: I am interested in new possibilities, but no,I do not spend my time trying out all the new bellsand whistles. Some of the software on my laptop areeven older versions. I try to save most of my timefor composition.

Vassilandonakis: But when you do use software,what do you use at home? Do you use software inthe compositional process or just in the realizationprocess?

Leroux: I mainly work with Open Music, Pro Tools,AudioSculpt, Max/MSP, and Peak. I also work invery “low-tech” ways, with pencil and paper.

Vassilandonakis: How do you reconcile these inyour daily work? Do you work on the formalconcepts first, or do you explore the technicalpossibilities?

Leroux: I always work on both at the same time. Iwork on form and at the same time on sonic detailfor example. That allows for the two worlds toinform and interpret each other, hand in hand. It isthe best technique that I know; it allows one to bevery focused and precise with detail on one hand,and on the other, to have a large-scale view of thework and know where it wants to go.

Vassilandonakis: How do you approach usingelectronics, and how did that approach develop?

Leroux: First of all, the use of electronics gaveme the possibility of creating new sounds . . .then, as an extension of instrumental or orchestraltimbre, an extension of possibilities of instrumentsor voices or of instrumental gestures, or even oftreating the sound. Also, as a fusion of instrumentaland electronic timbre, that gave birth to hybridinstruments or meta-instruments . . . and evenlater, the conceptual contribution, computer-aidedcomposition, models (where electronics serve as amodel for instrumental writing or the reverse), as

well as at the harmonic plan, and rhythmic, spatial,timbral, or formal level.

Vassilandonakis: Is it fair to say that your musicalpersonality has grown and shaped itself with tech-nology becoming better, easier to work with, and alot more available?

Leroux: It is amazing, because at the time thatmy musical ideas were becoming very precise, thetechnological means were advancing. Before that, itwas very complicated to make a mix if one wantedto be very precise in synchronizing events, whereasnow the precision is extremely fine. Therefore,my music has evolved along with the technology,especially in the real-time issues. But I have thefeeling that we are still in the prehistoric era,compared to what is coming.

Vassilandonakis: How has it affected your instru-mental composing?

Leroux: Enormously. First, as you mentioned, Isoon found myself composing my instrumentalmusic with sounds or groups of sounds, rather thanwith notes, rhythms, and chords. In addition, theelectroacoustic music practice took my interests tomusical elements hardly explored until then, likedynamics, notions of textures, granulation, etc.

Vassilandonakis: Is there something you are strivingto achieve compositionally that you wish could beaccommodated by technology not yet available?

Leroux: Yes, for example analyzing a sonic structurein an intelligent manner, being able to decipher thedifferent voices of a polyphonic texture, in the senseof notes as well as timbres within the differentlayers. That is very complex to do with computers,and yet our ear does it very naturally and effortlessly.

Vassilandonakis: Where do you think the future ofcomputer music is heading?

Leroux: For me, the future of electronics lies in itsvery obliteration, meaning when we can do the mostcomplex operations in the most easy and simpleway, but that is still far from being the case. I alwaysthink of real time, which is for the moment stillvery approximate in the degree of precision of thewriting.

Vassilandonakis 21

Vassilandonakis: Until then, how do you compen-sate? Do you use more sound files played back, asopposed to real time?

Leroux: At the current state of technology availablefor real-time electronics, I use sound files if at allpossible. I always go for the simplest solution first.If that is not enough—which is very often—well,then I work with real time.

Vassilandonakis: But you have worked mostly atIRCAM, which is a bit of a utopian situation. It isnot quite the same as having a complex electronicsetup in the real world.

Leroux: You are probably right. I have heard horrorstories, but personally, up to now, even outsideof IRCAM, I have never had problems, really. Butthen again, it is true that I always work with realprofessionals. For example, in the United States,I have worked with CNMAT at UC Berkeley andat Columbia University, and in Canada at theelectronic studio at McGill in Montreal.

Vassilandonakis: The electronics in your mixedpieces seem to be fully integrated with the instru-mental timbres. In M for example, one would haveto look for the speakers on stage to realize wherethings are coming from. I am assuming this is notby chance.

Leroux: Yes, for M, I was aiming for a total fusionbetween the instruments and the electronics. Butlater, in subsequent performances of M, I tried otherspatialization configurations, around the public forexample, an approach that also works very well. Ilove the results with both approaches, so dependingon the hall acoustics, I choose one or the other.

Vassilandonakis: Tell me more about your longassociation with IRCAM. What is it like to havea center that is funded directly by the Frenchgovernment? Do the politics of such an affiliationget in the way of music?

Leroux: It is amazing, an institution truly out ofthe ordinary. At an age where nothing mattersother than what is profitable and commercial,IRCAM is the proof that governments can investin values other than the immediate commercial. I

suppose we owe such a diversion from “businessas usual” to a rare few politicians who believe ininvesting in culture as a motor of a society, andin doing so, creating new values in the long run.And also to Pierre Boulez, who founded it and hasworked so hard to make sure it exists and laststhrough the ever-changing fabric of governmentofficials.

Vassilandonakis: In the last five years, you have hadmajor performances and premieres in the U.S. andCanada. How do you feel your music fares in such adifferent cultural environment? How do audiencesreact? I mean beyond the inbred composer circles.In France, there seems to be a specialized audiencethat attends contemporary music concerts and whoknows the music and the language. Of course, it isa very different situation. I am curious on how youfeel about American and Canadian audiences.

Leroux: Frankly, each time has been fabulous.People have most often loved this music, evenat times when it was included in concerts withpieces much easier to digest. That makes youstop and think, but it is a very complicated phe-nomenon to try to analyze what audiences re-spond to, and hopeless to even think of trying tomanipulate it.

What I love about North American audiences isthat they seem to accept music as it is. They donot seem to look for a “frame” in which to classifythe composer, as is often the case with Europeanaudiences. In Europe, a lot of people, unfortunately,listen to music that lies stylistically within theconfines of music they know from the tradition, andanything new they hear has to go up against whatthey know already. The result is that there is alwaysa “mental screen” between an unfamiliar piece ofmusic and them. In America, the audience seems tobe a lot more free, and this freedom appeals to methe most.

Vassilandonakis: How about the performers andtheir response to your stylistic nuances?

Leroux: I have met and worked with amazingmusicians in the U.S. I am thinking of David Milnesin San Francisco, Michel Galantes in New York,and many others who are happy to be doing what


they do and are passionate about their work. Thenthere are those who are bored with their life andtheir work. I have experienced a bit of both there.When musicians no longer wish to explore theirinstrument or discover new sounds or a new way ofcombining sounds, they start not playing well, and itbecomes horrible, for them at first, and then for thecomposer and the audience. There are also financialissues that come into play. Nobody can makegood music with only one rehearsal. Finally, theinstrumentalists acquire a certain “sound culture.”a sort of contemporary performance practice; littleby little it is no longer necessary to explain that a sulponticello sound on the violin must really be altosul ponticello (right on the bridge). The musiciansfeel it themselves.

Vassilandonakis: How do you like to write fororchestra? It is a medium with such history andperformance practice, and also musical hierarchy,that it is very difficult to be innovative today.Maybe some orchestras in Europe are better versedat performing new music than those in the U.S.,but it is still difficult to have a truly progressivework well prepared. It just gets expensive. How doyou approach the medium? Plus loin, for example,is a very idiomatic work for orchestra that respectsthe tradition of the ensemble but also makesinnovations.

Leroux: Yes, these are all realities of working withexpensively run institutions that carry a 300-yearcultural history. Also, there are the realities ofeffectively dealing with 80–100 people, in both amusical and a social manner. Of my orchestralworks, you know Plus Loin, but I have also in recentyears written m′M, a concerto grosso for orchestra,and Pour que les etres ne soient pas traites commedes marchandise for twelve voices, orchestra,and electronics. These three pieces are extremelydifferent from each other in terms of orchestralwriting. I would say that for the moment I amexploring the orchestra, I am building experienceswith the orchestra. It seems to me that the orchestrashould work with new textures, almost an idea oftouching sound, but also exploring the possibilitiesof discourse, which is not easy. I hope it will happensome day.

Vassilandonakis: You are also a dedicated teacher,having taught many students from around the worldboth at the year-long courses at IRCAM, as wellas in your many visits to the U.S. and Canada,and you have also written pieces specifically forstudent musicians. How do you approach teachingand pedagogy?

Leroux: For me, teaching is an exchange betweenpersons who share a certain maturity (regardless ofage) and the pursuit of a craft; they speak the samelanguage, even if at different levels of eloquence.I would say that I have learned as much from mystudents as they have from me. It is enthrallingto introduce something that is a musical idea tosomeone who is very different from or a lot youngerthan you.

When one teaches, they are obligated to formulatethe “why” of musical things. That is also important,because it makes not only the student, but also theteacher advance. There are extraordinary composi-tion teachers in the U.S.; I am thinking of EdmundCampion at the University of California, Berkeley,or Tristan Murail at Columbia, or Joshua Finebergat Boston University.

Vassilandonakis: To go back to our earlier conversa-tion, one would never mistake the French influenceon your music, and yet, it has grown far beyond that.I dare say your music has become very individual,and also very global in a sense. I have a sense thatyour personality is constantly manifesting itself intothe music: intelligent yet not inaccessible, funnyat times, light, and with philosophical overtonesand concerns. How do you feel you have achievedthat?

Leroux: Thanks for the compliment; that reallytouches me. My music is French as far as formalclarity is concerned, American in the interest Ihave for the repetitive and mechanical phenomena,German in a certain vision of instrumentation andorchestration, and, without a doubt, of a lot ofother origins that I cannot even imagine. For me,music represents life, and life is like this: funny, sad,or tragic, making us reflect on our origins and ourhumanity, complex and simple. I am also thinking ofBach, the Passions, the Fugues, and the cabaret songs.

Vassilandonakis 23

Vassilandonakis: What is next for you? You havebeen the composer in residence with the Metzorchestra?

Leroux: Yes, I will be in residence until the endof next year with l’Orchestre National de Lorraineand at l’Arsenal de Metz, in France. It is a veryinteresting residency. They will perform almostall the works in my catalog, around thirty pieces.There will also be a teaching aspect and a lot ofevents with young musicians. At the moment,I

am enjoying being invited to different universitiesaround the world to teach and talk about my musicand to have it performed in new places by newensembles. I try to be true to what I do and be open,devoted, and dedicated.

Reference

Vilella, M. 1999. Processus et invention dans Continuo(ns)de Philippe Leroux. Paris: Editions L’Harmattan.


leroux interview

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