© Gilles Aubry

The concert program highlights the convergence of traditional and avant-garde music in Morocco. Ahmed Essyad’s electroacoustic compositons from the 1970s evoke popular music heard in Moroccan villages in the late 1950s. Gilles Aubry performs with modular synths and AI sounds inspired by a Moroccan song about machines from the 1930s. The event celebrates the release of Essyad's album on Belgian label Subrosa (2024) and Aubry's album on Berlin label Corvo (2025).

Ahmed Essyad: Electroacoustic works (1972-1973) Gilles Aubry: L'Makina (2023) live on modular synth & computer

Ahmed Essyad is a composer born in 1938 in Salé, Morocco. Afer studying music at the Rabat Conservatory in Morocco, he moved to Paris in 1962, where he became a pupil and then assistant to Max Deutsch. Trained in the avant-garde processes of Western musical composition, he also claims the amazigh folk music of Morocco as a fundamental source of inspiraton for his work.

Gilles Aubry is a Swiss sound artst, experimental musician, and researcher. His practce relies on research methods and transdisciplinary knowledge from across the arts, humanites, and technology studies, including film, composition, field recording, performance, installation, radio art and more.