Program note

Pneumusique, written for Ensemble Paramirabo, takes its title from a play on words between new music and the pneumatic nature of the Table de Babel instrument, invented by Jean-François Laporte. The root pneum- references not only air or breath, but also the spirit. 

Through hands-on workshops with the Babel Table, I enjoyed the tactile process of discovering its many sound possibilities. Exploring the instrument felt like being a child again, playing with sound freely, being surprised at each turn of a knob or touch of a membrane. The Babel Table’s compressed air differs from traditional wind instruments, as its artificial “lung” can be a never-tiring, driving force to the point of saturation. Musically, the piece navigates between meditative, delicate, atmospheric moments and unrelenting, mechanical pulsations growing ever faster and denser. Interspersed throughout are moments of nostalgic musical fragments, which drift by like momentarily tuning into a radio station, or the echo of a beautiful summer memory amidst the daily grind.

This piece is dedicated to a friend, the talented saxophonist Mario Allard, who tragically died in early 2025, very unexpectedly. I remember him as a beautiful, kind person with a great sense of humor, who lived life to the fullest. While writing Pneumusique, I kept coming back to a home video of Mario playing the jazz standard “Body and Soul” outdoors for a small child. The toddler observes him carefully. She rests her hand on his knee, tries tasting the instrument, even puts her face inside the bell to see where the sound is coming from as he plays. It is a beautiful, intimate, unabashed moment of discovery. At the end of the Pneumusique, I have transcribed this same solo, here for the bass clarinet, fading to nothing.

“I can't believe it, it's hard to conceive it […] Are you pretending? It looks like the ending 
Unless I could have one more chance […]” – from “Body and Soul” (1930), music by Johnny Green and lyrics by Edward Heyman, Robert Sour and Frank Eyton.