Alexandre Babel
Composer
Which sound is special for you?
I like poor sounds. “Poor” as opposed to “noble” sounds, and which would not be the product of musical instruments or any sound producing devices of advanced technology, high quality material or high craftmanship. A pen hitting a matchbox, a ceramic plate sliding over the surface of a table, the snap of a finger, these are examples of sounds I am interested in. I believe the identity of a sound depends equally from the context it is presented in than from its source, thus the quality of the sound depends on the care that is put into its contextualisation and its rendition.
How would you describe the relationship to your instrument?
The percussion is an instrument of multiple identities, cultures, material and techniques. It is everything and nothing in particular. Because of that, the percussionist is constantly confronted to new situations, she/he must adapt. This is the basis of my relationship to the instrument. The partnership of the percussionist and his/her instrument is based on adaptability.
What instrument has yet to be invented?
A device whose use is collective and whose activation depends on the establishment of a group consensus.
Born 1980 in Geneva. Alexandre Babel is a Swiss composer, percussionist and curator based in Berlin. He is involved in various contemporary contexts encompassing modern classical music, performance art and interdisciplinary works involving the visual arts. Through a mixture of virtuosity, immersion in the texture of sound and a link between the performing arts and the plastic arts, his projects break through the borders of musical convention, confounding listener expectations in the conquest of new contexts.
His compositional work is seen as an extension of the drum kit, a hybrid and multiple instrument, into wider fields. Whether solo, chamber music, instrumental ensemble or installation, he brings flows made of disparate elements into contexts, be it sound, space or visual situations.
After studying in New York and at Geneva‘s Haute Ecole de Musique, he was principal percussionist with Ensemble KNM Berlin and a founding member of the multidisciplinary collective RADIAL. He has worked with the Musikfabrik ensemble, the industrial rock band Sudden Infant and artists such as La Ribot, Anthony Pateras, Stephen O’Malley, Carol Robinson, Tristan Perich, Félicia Atkinson and Ryoji Ikeda.
In 2020, the monographic festival Les Amplitudes in La Chaux-de-Fonds focused on his work as a composer and curator. In 2022, he collaborated with the artist Latifa Echakhch for the Swiss pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale of Art. From 2013 to 2022 he was artistic director of the contemporary percussion collective Eklekto. Alexandre Babel is the recipient of the Swiss Music Prize in 2021.