Apr

SOPHIE DELAFONTAINE: Delafontaine, Lillios, Hartman / INTONAL 2025

25 April 2025 21:30 | Concert

Elainie Lillios – “Arturo” 13'45
Hanna Hartman – “Att Fälla Grova Träd Är Förknippat Med Risker” 8'35
Sophie Delafontaine – “Trouée” 11'28
Sophie Delafontaine – “Bouffée" 14’

I am delighted to be invited to INTONAL FESTIVAL for the second time. For this occasion, I have put together a program that combines some of my own compositions with pieces that I particularly appreciate.

This program is entirely dedicated to works composed by women. I don’t know the situation in Sweden, but in Belgium and France, female composers are still too often underrepresented in concerts and festivals, even though they are numerous and talented. I too often find myself at events where not a single woman is programmed. This is not an accusation, just a fact.

If even I, as a woman, don’t take the initiative to program female composers, then things are unlikely to change. Beyond that, I also feel a responsibility to set an example for future female composers. They need to be able to see themselves in this field, to know that they belong here, and that their music deserves to be heard just as much as anyone else's.

However, asserting oneself is not always easy when you’ve been raised to be quiet and discreet. Taking up space, making bold artistic choices, and standing by them requires extra effort when you've grown up with the idea that it’s better not to make waves. But today, I’ve decided to fully embrace my choices.

Some might find this inappropriate or unnecessary. I don’t care. I stand by it. It may just be a «un pet dans l’eau» (a drop in the ocean) as we say in French, but it’s something that truly matters to me.

Swiss-born Sophie Delafontaine moved to Belgium at the age of 20, entering the world of acousmatic music and working on the famed acousmonium of Musiques & Recherches, side by side with the pioneer of acousmatic music, Annette Vande Gorne. Her particular interest on acousmatic performance led her to win the second prize at the 2012 Concours d’interprétation spatialisée “Espace du son” and to collaborate on several projects, such as the development of the first fixed acousmonium in Lausanne (the Wolfonium); by performing various pieces on the triple-desk version of the Alcôme Acousmonium (Paris); and developing Titans, a sound projection system consisting of concrete-enclosed loudspeakers.

With the support of Wallonie-Bruxelles International.