Aurélien Gignoux, 25, a soloist with the Ensemble intercontemporain, was named “Revelation of the Year” at the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2021. During his training at the conservatory, he performed with major orchestras, worked with internationally renowned conductors, and received numerous international awards. He discusses his relationship with music and percussion.
— For your recital at the Haizebegi Festival, you’ll be performing *Rapport d’étape* by Jean-Pierre Drouet, *Tribes* by Christian Lauba, *Rebonds A and B* by Iannis Xenakis, and *S2* by Marc Andre. Why did you choose these pieces?
Aurélien Gignoux: Denis Laborde suggested Marc Andre’s piece to me. I had already worked with Marc Andre, but on an ensemble piece, and I’m happy to explore his music as a soloist. The other pieces are works I’ve performed before. Xenakis’s *Les Rebonds* are landmarks of percussion—perhaps the most frequently performed solo pieces, or at any rate among the most significant.
Next, I wanted to incorporate different families of instruments. Christian Lauba’s piece for marimba—which is highly virtuosic—draws inspiration from African rhythms. It also has a very meditative quality. Jean Pierre Drouet is a tremendous percussionist, improviser, and composer. I’m performing his piece for aquarium and small instruments, which leans a bit toward musical theater. It’s very poetic, which shows that percussion isn’t just about hitting things—it’s also full of imagination and extraordinary sounds.
— What types of percussion instruments are featured in these four pieces?
Aurélien Gignoux: Pretty much all the major families of percussion instruments. Keyboard instruments: the marimba with its wooden bars. Skin-headed instruments, for the Xenakis piece: bass drums, toms, bongos, and woodblocks. For another piece, there are also timpani, but with gongs placed on top of them—metal instruments, the third major family: Korean gongs, triangles, Japanese and Tibetan bowls, and plate bells. And there’s a little oddity: an aquarium containing a miniature collection of all these instrument families—jingle bells, small cymbals, a mouth-blown siren, and plenty of poetry!
— You can play a wide variety of percussion instruments. Which one did you start with?
Aurélien Gignoux: We often start with drumsticks, tapping on a snare drum or a bass drum—basically, things related to the world of drumming. Then we move on to keyboards, often the xylophone. And we move on to the timpani. Those are the three main areas. The higher the level, the more instruments we discover. What’s great is that we never really stop discovering percussion instruments. Everything is a percussion instrument! For example, I play a mouth-blown siren, and I even use water as an instrument. We’re constantly discovering new ones.
— Do you compose your own music?
Aurélien Gignoux: No, I don’t compose, but I do improvise. I’m fortunate to be able to work with living composers and to exchange ideas directly with them at the source. As a performer, we try to convey their music as effectively as possible, to find the essence of what the composer is trying to express, and to bring that to life. The percussion repertoire is currently expanding. Solo percussion is a very recent development; we don’t have nearly the same repertoire as violinists or pianists. I really enjoy working with today’s composers to help the instrument—and the music surrounding percussion—evolve.
— You mentioned improvisation—what kind?
Aurélien Gignoux: “Improvisation” is a catch-all term. I improvise a bit within the styles I’m asked to play—styles I enjoy exploring. I really love jazz, of course, but I also love improvising with sounds—what’s called generative improvisation, which is linked to contemporary sounds. I also enjoy improvising with traditional music. In fact, it’s more of a language, a tool for dialogue, than a specific style.
— In your opinion, what makes a good percussionist?
Aurélien Gignoux: I’d say it’s listening. But that applies to all musicians. More specifically for percussionists, it would be the ability to adapt. I spent an afternoon exploring the instruments, trying to figure out what works best with the venue’s acoustics using the instruments that were available. That’s really specific to percussion. There are so many instruments that you can’t possibly bring them all with you. So, in my opinion, the ability to adapt easily and quickly is one of the keys to being a good percussionist.
— What appeals to you about contemporary music?
Aurélien Gignoux: It’s the connection with today’s composers that’s truly exceptional. When you play Brahms or Mozart, how many performers would dream of spending five minutes talking with them? It’s exciting to think that you have the music of the future in your hands—that you’re discovering things before anyone else. And it’s wonderful if you can share them with others.
Interview by Marie Le Diraison
