Dialogue 1: Serge Vuille&Christina Agaronyan

— Good day to you, Serge! Your work is very inspiring with the width of very different things. In 2018 you became the artistic director of the very well-known ensemble “Contrechamps”. Can you tell us how this ensemble appeared in your life and you in the life of the ensemble?
— Yes, happily. I was living in London at that time. Active as a freelancer, performer, teacher, composer, curator. And a friend of mine who plays in the ensemble told me that the group is looking for a new director. I wasn’t really looking for a job but I thought uh... I have been programing the series in Kammer Klang for five years and I really enjoyed the curating side of my practice. So, I thought ok, I’ll try. And then I got the job. So that’s how it started. And then I moved to Geneva from London to be able to fully take the position.

— Can you tell us, during those years what projects together have you realized?
— Of course. Since I arrived it was, of course, a very particular time. Because I arrived in April 2018. The next season was mostly already programed by my predecessor. Two projects I suggested — one is called “Sound sculptures” and another one with Maya Masse “Electronic music”. These are two projects I did in the first year. And mostly I was there to program the following season and then follow up with the realization of the first one. Of course, as you know, my first season was 2019-2020 and we were able to realize half of it and then the covid happened. So, it’s been a little bit special because I programed two seasons with “Contrechamps”. But we did a half-season normally and then it all became a little bit complicated. Nevertheless, I am super happy with what we’ve been able to do. We did lots of commissions and really explored also many different formats for concerts — installation-concerts, outdoor concerts, very short and very long formats. So, it’s been really interesting. I am really happy about it even though I am looking forward to being able to realize concerts normally.
— So, 2020 was quite a really difficult for all musicians and especially for collectives. Can you talk about the project that you could realize during this difficult time? Maybe there were distant projects, online projects, or any sort of laboratories, workshops.
— Yes, anyway we had several good surprises with the ensemble. We were supposed to start the year with a tour to Mexico. Of course, this didn’t happen. But we did a virtual tour. And to do that we started working with virtual reality with the oculus, glasses, and the synthesizer inside. We really dived into technologies in a way I wouldn’t have dared if there was no outside pressure. And we also produced some works at a distance. I would expand a little bit about this VR, virtual reality, called Patch XR. It was really like the whole world that’s open, these are instruments but they are virtual. It’s quite close to my interests in a way it’s really about instruments, about instrumental practice but on the other hand, it’s really like connected and looking toward the future. From this little tour, we did another workshop. And we are planning a one- or two-year research project with the Conservatoire in Geneva. So, from this little spark that came from the canceled tour to Mexico now, we have a two-year research program. I think that’s one of the good surprises.

— So, 2020 also opened up new possibilities you could not have thought of.
— Another good surprise we had is that one of our concerts we did in streaming was picked up by a record label to do a CD. So we will release a CD from our live streaming of "Music for 18 musicians" by Steve Reich that we did without an audience but then a label saw it and now we’re going to release a CD and vinyl. And further, for the release, we will project the streaming in the cinema so we will tell people to come in person to see this film. There are many small things that happen that were also really good learning opportunities.
— It’s very interesting. Thank you! In the future what do you think when you are thing of a program, concert… What is important for you when you are doing the lineups, the programs?
— Several things are important to me in terms of programming. I guess I see the ensemble “Contrechamps” to have one side which is geared towards the audience in Geneva and the scene in Geneva so it’s important to us also to present famous works, known pieces, like works by Boulez, Steve Reich, etc. This is important to me to show it in Geneva because there is no other ensemble that plays this repertoire in Geneva. 
It’s also important to collaborate with artists from Geneva, to give them a platform to develop. And then the other side for me is – it’s also important — to be part of the scene more European, the world scene to look out for where the research is going, where the new trends are going, how to get involved, and to support artists that really bring new directions. 
And of course, my favorite moments are when all these three things come together when an artist from a region in a practice that is maybe more global and the audience is interested in that — that is perfect! But I know it’s not always possible. So, I try to focus at least on one of these three focal points. And it’s now in every program. 
Sometimes I also really like to mix programs. I prefer a program with very contrasting aesthetics, very contrasting approaches in it. I prefer it as a programmer. I prefer it as an audience when I go out. This is really something I learned in London. Maybe we will talk about it later. When I was programming in Kammer Klang I really realized that I enjoy a night with rock, contemporary, pop and salsa, whatever. I enjoy this mixture. I try always to remember that as an audience I really enjoy this diversity.

— For example, in Russia, there is still, periodically happens this disconnect between the public, the audience and the scene, the musicians. So, the public is not very often ready to hear experimental music. Of course, the audience is growing year by year and they are more educated in this field and more interested but still, there is this sort of fear that something could be perceived not in a way that it was intended, something might be misunderstood. Do you face those kinds of problems or your audience is quite loyal and open to your experiments and trust you?
— Well, again it’s hard for me to talk about Geneva audiences because I have almost not met them, you know. I met them for one year which was not my season and then half a year and then we didn’t really see them all that much. But what I could perceive there is a lot of trust. It’s still a niche. We don’t have big audiences, maybe 150 people come to concerts. When it’s bigger we can go a bit higher. It depends also on the partnerships we have. But I feel the general vibe is good. People are really curious. They come for experimentation. But having said that I think also the diversity in the program helps a lot. I’m always trying to make a program where people will like one thing. Maybe I program three things that night and I know they will like one. And that’s fine for me. So, there’re more people who will like one thing. They take a risk to discover something else. Maybe they like something else that they didn’t know before. But it’s kind of – I don’t try to put all my eggs in the same basket. I think it’s ok if people don’t like half the program. It’s more important that they really remember one thing that they liked or that they enjoyed or they found interesting. Liking is still a complicated term.
— I think that in any concert anybody from the audience would find something that they might like more. You also said that you give commissions to young composers or maybe not too young composers. Who usually writes for your ensemble?
— I guess, we do seven to ten commissions every year. It depends really... It’s the same rules for me. Some commissions go to composers that are younger or more local. Some commissions go to composers who are at the avant-garde on the scene in Europe or in the world in the way they really look for new paths. Then we also sometimes commission the really famous composers for a new piece. And it’s a preview because we only announce the program next Tuesday. But next year for example we will have co-commission from Peter Eötvös, a really big name with three other big ensembles. We have a commission by Joanna Bailie, who is a British composer based in Berlin. I think her work is really pushing for new ideas. She mixes video and sound in ways I find really interesting. Another example is a little bit at the border Erika Stucky, she is a Swiss American artist. She does folk, experimental folk, yodel – a really interesting mix. And she’s quite known in Switzerland. But she’s also has something – I find very strong – to propose and it’s aesthetically really a big jump from the new music that may be what people think when we say new music. So, these are three examples. 
We also always work with the conservatoire here. We have three students each year who write a piece for us as well. I really try to cover a wide range of experiences, aesthetics, and also a kind of levels of experience.
— Thank you! Did you have any experience with working with Russian composers?
— Oh, that’s a good question. The “Contrechamps” is going to the ReMusik festival next year. In St. Petersburg we will give two or three concerts and will work with Alexander Khubeev, Marina Poleukhina and Dmitry Kurlyandsky. I’m trying to think whether I’ve worked directly with Russian composers… I know the ensemble played one of Dmitry Kurlyandsky’s pieces before but now I’m not so sure. I had this experience also with the studio for new music in Moscow as a composer. A few months ago they did this peer-to-peer workshop and so I was involved but more as a composer, collaborator with the ensemble I was in touch with them. 
  

Also, I’m gonna say that I really like Russia. I love Russia. I traveled to Russia 20 years ago now. Almost 20 years ago I took a trans-Siberian train from Moscow to Vladivostok and the back with the Baikal-Amursky Magistral. It was a crazy trip. But I made some friends there. Sadly, I haven’t been back to Russia since… but it was a good trip. I really like this country. 
— Yes, I can imagine that it was quite a crazy trip. Maybe in a good way. Not a lot of Russians can really say that they’ve had that experience. As for the news for music, I still again don’t know whether it’s a secret or not so we will just keep that in mind and correct our plans for the next year.
— I don’t think it’s a secret.
— Thank you very much. And I really hope that we see each other there live next year. So, you said you worked in London. And you studied at the Royal College of Music and you also taught there. 
— I first went to London in 2009 to study. I did the intensive masters at the Royal College of Music. And then I wasn’t sure what to do. But then I started working with London Sinfonietta and then with some of the orchestras. Then I had some freelance work also in baroque music. It was a really really exciting and challenging  environment so I decided to stay. I decided to stay one year more and one more. And in the end, it was almost 10 years I stayed there. So I started teaching in the Royal college of music. 
And a few years later we were on tour with my professor there David Hawkins and I said that we should do a percussion quartet. We don’t have a percussion quartet at the college and so he said okay, come and do it. So, I started doing that. In parallel, I also took over the experimental music class which is a class at the Royal College for master students where we looked at open scores, instruction-based scores, graphic scores, music with electronics — all the things that don’t really find a place in the curriculum. And we did them. I was also really super excited. It was also very impressive — the level of all the instruments (there were saxophone players, violinists, whatever) was really extremely high. We were looking at these crazy scores with very very strong musicians who really-really wanted to do it. So, it was really special.
— For me, this is a very big question how can you really teach the experimental music? It’s extremely interesting. If I understand this correctly you discussed it from the performer’s perspective more. For me as a musical theoretician it’s not as clear how to find the approach to the score that is unique. With the traditional musical analysis, I cannot really approach to a lot of scores. So, it doesn’t work and each time you have to invent the language of description. How did you look through the scores with the performers or who were the people?
— Yes, there was a group of performers, about 10-15, depending on the year. And we really looked at open scores, for example, there’s this La Monte Young's piece which is just an interval, the fifth interval and it says “hold for a long time”. So, this is the score, this is the instruction. And then one has to make choices as performers, of course, how we’re going to do this, how we’re going to get into it, and then make a version of it. And indeed, there’s not music analysis in the same sense but in another way, it’s also music that is composed. That’s gonna be not the same but similar each time.

There is also, for example, a piece by Jennifer Walshe that I like which is about skateboarding. The performer has to imagine that she or he’s on a skateboard and going through the parkour and thinking, okay, I’m going down now and thinking that in their heads and then using their instruments to play that. So, there is a score, the score is not imagined, the score is the instruction as to how to imagine parkour, and then the musician has to translate that experience into sound. So, these are the kind of scores that we did, very open and in a way … some are less open. 
We also did pieces by Tom Johnson ("Counting Duets") which are counting duets where it’s about two people counting in different ways and there’s a number game between the two. But they are written out. 
So, it’s really about opening this window of freedom also for performance but still, the composition exists as any other composition. Sometimes they are not so detailed in their notation but the idea, the concept, and the content of the piece are in the score. And then the interpretation gives a lot of space to performers and that’s something which I think is really important in the institution of classical training. It is still classical trainees that things are very very restricted. We don’t feel like we’re allowed to even make a crescendo. You know, it’s like oh no, we can’t, Mozart said one didn’t write the crescendo — we don’t do a crescendo. But I think in a way that for the music to live we have to take a little bit more freedom with all these things and these pieces somehow focus on that aspect of taking only the freedom. There’s very little that is fixed and then there’s a lot of freedom. And we still have this practice of as  interpreters. There’s a lot of discipline that goes into it. We make choices, we decide what to do. It’s not at all improvised in that sense. It’s just the interpreters who make choices to realize, to give life to the world.
— With improvisation for me, it’s a very big question. I for myself have decided but I wanted to know your opinion. What is the major difference between improvisation and experimental music, experimental compositions?
— It’s a good question. For me, I guess, I solved it for myself as a performer saying I’m not an improviser. Improvising is a practice. Improvisation is more like live composition. The person who does it is also bringing in the ideas for it. I didn’t do {improvisation} so much, I can of course improvise a little bit but I wouldn’t qualify myself as an improviser. However, if you as a composer write on a score as an instruction “improvise” and then you give this to me as a score then I will do it happily because it’s not gonna be so much about me improvising. It’s gonna be about me making music that I think is in your head in a way or that from what I know of your other compositions and the context in which we played. There’s a lot of information I have where I can make up this music and I think that’s maybe a difference between improvising and experimenting. Experimental music is that in one everything is made of life and in the other the thought and the reflection about the piece, about the content, about what should and shouldn’t be in it which is done, done in a longer time frame. So, I think that’s could be a good difference. And then even if I myself compose an experimental piece and perform it myself it’s not gonna be the same as if I improvise because I will have taken more time to think about what the piece could be and couldn’t be. And even if the sound at the end is the same the process is not the same. I think that’s how I solve it because I’ve been asked a lot to improvise also and I said no. you have to write it on a piece of paper.
— If I understand correctly, in many experimental compositions the musical material when being performed is not the result, not the idea but the music itself can be quite drastically different.
— Yeah.
— So, what is the core of this experimental composition? Or what is the musical experiment then?
— I guess, it’s exactly that it’s the thoughts and the ideas that went into making the piece regardless of somehow how they materialize in practice but the idea, the center of the piece, the concept is always the same. I think that’s what it is. And sometimes we can hear it. Sometimes we maybe cannot hear it. But ideally, we can hear it or we can perceive for sure the concept. I think it’s important that the piece also is able to carry the meaning through but really exactly it doesn’t need to be the same expression of this idea. This idea can have different lives and come back to the same process, same concept, or same content.
— Thank you very much! For theoreticians with a classical education, this topic is quite specific and quite peculiar. As a big fan of experimental music, I still face those questions. Sometimes with a negative context. I’m very thankful to you for the answer.

— What do you think you can call experimentalism as a specific musical genre (as minimalism)? Can this be a specific direction or is it something of a different kind?
— I don’t think aesthetically in any case we can categorize it. I think aesthetically it can really be anything and everything. I think there can be minimalist experimental music, and tonal experimental music, and microtonal experimental music. I don’t know that it’s necessary to categorize it. I think in the way the scores are written there’s really a category that has become something, for example, instruction-based scores, text scores where the text says, okay, do this and do that, don’t do this and don’t do that. That has become a topic. There’s a nice book by James Saunders and John Lely called «Word Events: Perspectives on Verbal Notation». It’s a nice book that has about 20-30 examples of many different instruction-based scores. And that’s in itself is a topic but the way how these pieces sound is completely open. But the way they are thought and written down somehow comes into this category. The same may be goes to graphic scores. The same goes to open scores where the music is written but not the instrumentation so any instrument can play that piece. So, there are some sub-categories I guess in the way the pieces are written. But aesthetically I don’t think so. 
One thing which is important to me also that I realized slowly… I realized when a friend told after a concert, a friend from school that is not a musician: “Look! It’s nice whatever to see you on stage but I feel like you’re making an experiment in front of me and this experiment doesn’t work”. That really made me thinking because I think it’s true. In many cases in music we present experiments as if they were always successes or they have to be successes because there’s an audience, there’s a concert.
 So, in relation to that, I did a performance as a part Roche, a big pharma company convention and I was talking to people who developed medicine and they said in their career may be zero, maybe one medicine that they worked on will make it to the public, to the market. All the others they try and try and then it doesn’t work and they bin it. And then they start again and years and years of research… And I think in music, maybe in the arts it would be really nice to have space where we can experiment and be okay when it doesn’t work because we’re always in this situation with the audience that we have to pretend that it’s good even when it’s not. There is this place we did this experiment, it didn’t work, everything exploded, we broke the kitchen and so we’re gonna stop it, we’re not gonna show it to anybody. 
And so that is something that I started working on at “Contrechamps”. We have a labarotoire and this is, for now, one week where we invite three guests for two days each to work with four musicians. And they come with ideas and things, they try and whatever and at the end, we do open the studio for one hour. People can come to see what happened but we just present what we did. We don’t say it was good. We don’t say it was bad. We just say this is what we worked on. And then if we liked it I commission a piece for concert and stuff because we know already there’s some common interests and things like that. And that has been really great. Every year, about half the artists we get do something really big the year after. And to a half we say, okay, it was super nice to meet you and work with you but I don’t think we’re gonna get anywhere with that. So, that really opened a lot of freedom. It’s easier to take risks. You know, I don’t have to justify, to say why this piece, why that… no, it’s just to try. It’s really just to try. 
And anyway we find also the mindset is really more open and it’s easier to find solutions about experimentation and experimental music versus composition or contemporary composition. I think more than thinking we need to categorize them. I think we should find the bridge in between that allows maybe to go from one to the other, from proper experimentation, really open, really crazy, whatever, to something that becomes like a concert piece, a performance piece or, whatever, recording piece.
— Yes, thank you! Can you talk a little bit about the experimental compositions that you yourself create and write? So, what forms and methods? What is interesting to you?
— I guess this is not a practice that is very regular for me. With the last couple of years being crazy… but I can tell you still what I like to do. It’s just not very regular for me. It’s hard for me to make really general thoughts but I mean, I really like the relations with instruments and the touch and things like that. So, I’ve done some pieces, really instrumental pieces about sharing one instrument or touching the skin of a drum or really going and looking for these tiny little sounds. My music is not written as notes generally. Again, it’s an instruction-based score. I made one for two people sharing one drum and one for two people sharing a violin when one person is spinning the violin like this and the other one comes with the bow and looks for the sounds and things like that. It’s very collaborative. I like that as well. One of the things I really enjoy myself as a performer in music is to communicate with other people on stage and look at each other. That’s what brings me also the most joy. 
Then more recently, three or four years ago, I started working on more documentary pieces, multimedia documentary pieces. This is when a subject or something that I saw, I got really into and that really had a sound for me. So, I did one piece about bells, cowbells, and church bells. We went to see how they are made and we made some documentary footage about how to make bells, and how they are used, and how they are tuned. Then we went to people in England who traditionally still do the bell ringing with hands. And they have these crazy compositions that they memorize for half an hour with these big bells. These are really really crazy things. And then we went to the Swiss cows and we filmed those Swiss cows and we learned about how, for example, the cowbells are disappearing because the neighbors don’t want them anymore. And so that was the topic. 
Then with the colleague Robert Torche we dived into the sound. We took this recording, this idea, these scores, and I rewrote the handbell part for a cello that was playing in duet with 12 church bells in unison, for example. So, I’m trying to find the articulation between what I find interesting and fascinating about this world, this topic that I’m researching, and then how I can translate this impression into sound and into music. And this is something I really enjoyed doing. This kind of research, first research on a topic - more generally not only sound but also making recording and videos and trying to gather up an understanding for this subject. And then for myself diving into what it means in terms of sound, how I can translate the impressions in terms of sound, music, performance.
— If I understand correctly that in your compositions you are using, let’s say, any sort of media. 
— Yeah.  I did these multimedia works which include video, one or two screens. And then in instrumental playing,  then electronics as well. When I did this peer-to-peer with a studio for new music in Moscow I also used video scores. So, I sent them video scores that they used. And we created together the parts for their instruments based on these video scores. I don’t do it enough. I really like it certainly to keep it open to performance staging, video, multi-channel, immersive experience. All these things I’m interested in.

— Can you talk a bit more about the big project Tosca?
— That’s a project I did after I went on the cargo ship for 10 days. When I was there, I just put my camera on the sound on the window for some time and also went to film a bit downstairs in the engine room. But I didn’t necessarily want to make a composition but when I came back, I thought, wow, this was really like an extremely strong experience. Also on the boat, it was very quiet. There’s no internet, no phone signal, nothing but there’s always this kind of vibration that is throughout. It’s very nice. It’s not disturbing at all. But it’s just the scale. And everything was really impressive and so I wanted to make a work about that. So, I wrote for a big bass drum that I play myself. And then videos from the trip, from the engine room… The engine goes at 60 rounds per minute. There are 12 big pistons. The engine is like a building. It’s this 60 rounds per minute thing that’s going all the time with 12 pistons, with 12 explosions every second. That’s what keeps the boat going. And that was the basis for the piece to have this constant pulse.
— Tosca is the name of the ship that you went with. 
— Yeah.
— So, you had also a narrator, the bass drum, electronics, and video. I read the legend, the annotation that it traveled from London to Morocco. Is this correct? Did you perform the piece yourself?
— Yes. I’m the narrator and bass drum player in the piece. I also made the electronics, prepared the electronics in the video. So, I made it all myself. Yes, the boat went from London to Morocco and then Morocco to Sicily. So, that was 10 days. We didn’t get off in Morocco. And went all way to Sicily. It’s also strange to be on this boat because, you know, there’s the world trade, almost everything in the world travels in these cargo ships. Also, the rubbish goes maybe to Asia, and weapons, and technology, and whatnot – we don’t know. Normally they say, oh no-no, there’s nothing but it’s the really very tense environment. When I was on the boat, I felt so calm. There was a lot of tension also that I wanted to make the piece about that. It’s big. It’s stable in a way and it’s calm but on the other hand also a little bit of wind at the end of the piece. You see how it really goes. It was moving a lot. And it’s also very fragile. It’s a lot of things… 
— How did you get on a cargo ship? If I understand correctly, it is not open for tourists, is it?
— There are specialized agencies who rent the cabins on the boat so it was just completely organized. It’s just like a hotel in a way. But there’re specialized agencies and you have to sign all the papers that you have helicopter insurance and whatever. But then you arrive in the port and everything is big, massive... But the tickets in a way we bought from a specialized agency. So, it’s possible to buy a ticket to go on a cargo ship. I didn’t smuggle.
— So, when you just started your trip, you didn’t know that it would lead to the creation of a piece.
— No, not really. That was not the point originally.
— Where was it performed first?
— I performed it first at Dronica festival (which is a drone music festival in London) in a church. That’s where I did the first performance then I did it once in Geneva and then the piece Tosca was played at Druskomanija festival in Lithuania.
— And I have just one more question. So, we talked about your work in London. What about the musical scene in London and in Switzerland? Are there any specific differences between the audiences?
— The differences between the scenes are many, I guess. The first is the fact that the funding system is really different. In Switzerland, it’s designed for small structure or at least small structure really have a path to get funding also. If you do one or two projects per year you can get funding. In England, it’s much much harder. There are some big structures that get really good funding. But for the free scene and the alternative scene, it’s really much harder to get any money. It doesn’t mean that the scene is not dynamic but it really means it’s structured differently. That’s one thing. 
I guess the other thing in England the question of audiences is really-really important. So, it’s very hard to do a series of concerts when there’s no good audience. That’s a focus for getting funding and anyway for organizing so it means that these questions that you were asking before what will the audience see or not they are very important. When you write reports these numbers are very important. In Switzerland, it’s also, of course, important. There are many projects that can live even if you have a very small audience. If you developing something over some time the first year, two years, three years if you don’t have so much audience people are going to be okay about it. I think that’s really a difference.
I found that the London scene was either like written music more, like sinfonietta, commissions, ensemble — things like that, or really alternative — open score, really light to organize experimental pieces, not so many rehearsals, more performative. That was a quality that I really liked. The scene in London was really dynamic in that sense and artists would take risks and  organize things themselves. There was really some energy there. Also, because there is nothing else. And in Switzerland, I also think the energy is really good and a lot of artists really get involved in their own projects and stuff. But I guess the pace is a little bit slower because there’s a whole temporality of funding: applications, answers, and then realizing the project and things like that which is good. But that means that more or less one project will take one year. And then I guess in London because there is no funding application people just do it. And then it’s done. Maybe they do another one or maybe they don’t. I think there’s different energy there. Aesthetically it’s hard to tell. I think there’s this open score culture that is very present in England in the alternative scene but in Switzerland, it also has its place. It’s not the same. But I think really the way the structures, the funding system, and the organizing system works both in terms of money and time — the temporality of the process – these are important differences. And then in a more institutional scene – different aesthetics. England always had a more tonal background in music — also Benjamin Britten… I think this still carries through. The music is not as dissonant and may be difficult to listen to as some of the European music might be.
— What about interdisciplinary projects?
— I guess they are happening everywhere. I don’t know that it’s more or less or whatever regardless of England and Switzerland this really a very interesting topic. I am really into it. I also think it’s very difficult to do properly interdisciplinary work where every art form has its proper space. I don’t know that I can say anything about the difference of this approach in Switzerland or England. I think it’s important really to open the door aesthetically and collaborate. I think it’s also important to always translate the needs and the way people work. Typically, the music ensemble will rehearse for three days and do one concert. A dance company will rehearse for six weeks and do seven concerts, seven performances. And just even these two things to find a way of working together needs a lot of work and understanding from everyone. So, I think it’s good to do it. But it’s good not to rush it also.
— You are not only the art director and composer. You are also a performer. If I am correct you were interested in ancient music and medieval music, I think. You played the baroque timpani of some sort. Did you perform medieval music and ancient music?
— Yeah. For nine years in London, I was full-time freelance. That was my main source of income. I was playing a lot of contemporary and experimental music. I also got into baroque music. So, baroque as in Bach and Mozart and also Beethoven I was playing on the timpani on natural skin (the old instruments with natural leather heads and then the gut strings for the violins). So, I was in one or two small orchestras, freelance orchestra, and the orchestra of the age of enlightenment. I did a few concerts with them as an extra. I was also playing drums, punk drums in an experimental band with an artist Martin Creed. I was teaching a little bit of experimental music. I was programing and curating or co-curating a camera clang series for a while. My life in London was really great. It was also tiring. But it was really super nice. 
Now when I came to Geneva everything stopped for two years. I’m not so sure yet which part of my performing career will take back on. I don’t miss so much playing within orchestras or ensembles. I don’t miss that much. I miss the stage for sure. I’m gonna go back to composing and making pieces for myself or collaborating.  Not for sure. If baroque music comes my way, I probably do one or two… but that’s not gonna be a priority, I think. It’s just really nice to do. It was really an incredibly rich, and challenging, and inspiring period in London. I had an opportunity to play with so many great musicians, and ensembles, and orchestras. That was really great. I guess it was a part of my life and this super freelance path I am not gonna go back to it fully, at least.
— I really hope that the COVID restrictions would be taken off and the pandemic would go away. I want to ask about your plans as a composer. Have you started maybe working with anything or maybe you have any ideas, something that we maybe could hear soon? Your personal projects.
— I’m slowly getting back into thinking about it. It’s been again a while. Dealing with the day-to-day was taking all my time. I have two topics I’d like to explore. One which is dams, you know, water dams. It needs still some work but that is a topic that I really want to explore. I really like these dams. They have so much tension. They are making clean energy but they are destroying the landscape. They are a solution and a problem. They’re big and they’re dangerous, whatever. I like this kind of tension. They also have this constant sound aspect. When there’s water flowing there’s always different intensity. There’s one close to my work. So, that’s the topic I’d like to continue working on. I don’t really know what shape the piece could take. 
The other one is traffic lights. I’d also like to work on it. In Geneva, they have this thing where every junction is a little bit different. And a pedestrian can go here, and trucks can go there, and the bicycles can go there. I got used to it. But it’s not intuitive. And somehow as a basis I really like this thing where in every junction the rules are a little bit different. It’s like every step would change the rules and I found it nice. But the sound the world goes with… I need an added element now to generate the sound because they don’t make a sound. It’s more like a concept of changing the rules at every corner. So, these are two projects that I currently have here. But I don’t have an end date for them yet.
— When you talk about artistic plans it’s always difficult to name dates. It can be very unpredictable. Very real things that surround us in everyday life are also interesting. It’s very very interesting to explore them and understand how it functions in an artistic sense.
— I get attached, get focused on small things or not-so-small things in daily life. I’m curious to research more and find out more curious things.
— Thank you very much for this wonderful chat. And I really hope that we could see each other – maybe the Russian part of the audience at the festival next year. I was very glad to meet you! Thank you very much for such an interesting conversation.
— Thanks to you. It’s really been a pleasure! Thanks for all these really nice questions many of which are often coming back to me. I’m thinking about things a lot. It was really a pleasure to discuss these topics with you. I also really hope we can see each other in a year. It would be really wonderful.

The guest of the first dialogue is the curator, composer, and percussionist Serge Vuille, artistic director of the Contrechamps ensemble. The interviewer is Christina Agaronyan, musicologist, project curator, one of the creators and editors of the Stravinsky.online website.

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