La prétention d’exister
La prétention d’exister
La prétention d’exister is the album version of a composition originally created for the choreographic work of the same name by Ariane Levasseur and Rozenn Lecomte.
This music accompanies a work that explores intimate narratives, dynamics of attachment, and the tensions between softness and resistance among queer and lesbian women. The piece unfolds within a world that is both raw and sensitive, where bodies assert their presence and their right to exist otherwise.
Driven by a desire for exploration, I moved away from my usual aesthetic affinities to develop a repetitive, dense, explosive, and deeply textural musical language. The album is structured in three pieces that trace a trajectory of transformation, both sonic and emotional.
The first track, La prétention d’exister, is rooted in a language close to industrial and deconstructed techno: a repetitive 4/4 structure at 120 BPM, driven by distorted materials, deep low frequencies, and sharp attacks. A raw, explosive aggressiveness runs through this opening, where energy manifests as a force of assertion and overflow.
The second track, Une armée d’amantes ne meurt jamais, gradually shifts toward a different listening regime. Without breaking the intensity, the structure dissolves into a textured ambient landscape, where saturation becomes material and time is stretched. This section acts as a transitional space, inspired by a more spectral and immersive approach to sound.
Finally, Momentum extends this movement into a more enveloping and organic writing. The energy retains the same density, but reveals an unexpected softness—an energy that leans more toward momentum, hope, and even a form of love.
Credits :
composed and mixed by Estelle Schorpp
mastered by Thomas Floquet
album cover by Jeanne Tétreault
composed and mixed by Estelle Schorpp
mastered by Thomas Floquet
album cover by Jeanne Tétreault
Shows:
26.09.2026
14-17.03.2026
Tangente, Montréal, CA.
dreamachine
film - a/v performance - 2025
dreamachine emerged from the collaboration between sound artist Estelle Schorpp and video artist Charline Dally. Created from archival footage recorded on DV cassettes in the Shinkansen and Hong Kong trains, the film brings together images that become fluid, blending with analog video feedback and shimmering textures. Musically, synthesized sounds and field recordings, modulated by algorithmic processes, compose a hybrid soundscape with brilliant and enveloping textures. The project seeks to transpose the sensation of looking out of a train window, and the way in which the mind can escape and float away in a dreamlike state.
“You come away with the feeling of having spent
a long time gazing out of a train window,
not quite knowing whether you were awake or dreaming.”
Félicité Couëlle-Brunet, PAN M 360, MUTEK 2026 [translated from French]
a long time gazing out of a train window,
not quite knowing whether you were awake or dreaming.”
Félicité Couëlle-Brunet, PAN M 360, MUTEK 2026 [translated from French]
Credits
music : Estelle Schorpp
image : Charline Dally
produced by Cymatiques III, Centre PHI
curated by Kohlenstoff records
music : Estelle Schorpp
image : Charline Dally
produced by Cymatiques III, Centre PHI
curated by Kohlenstoff records
Shows and screening
15.11.26
12.11.26
06.11.26 29.08.26
16.03.26
24.01-13.02.26
15.02.25
12.11.26
06.11.26 29.08.26
16.03.26
24.01-13.02.26
15.02.25
(live show) OFNI Festival, Poitiers, FR.
(live show) Sonica Festival, Ljubljana, SI.
(live show) HELLERAU, Dresde, DE.
(live show) MUTEK, Montréal, CA.
(sreening) FIFA, Montréal, CA.
(screening) dreamachine, Chapelle IV ,Paris, FR.
(live show) CYMATIQUES III, Centre PHI, Montréal, CA.
(live show) Sonica Festival, Ljubljana, SI.
(live show) HELLERAU, Dresde, DE.
(live show) MUTEK, Montréal, CA.
(sreening) FIFA, Montréal, CA.
(screening) dreamachine, Chapelle IV ,Paris, FR.
(live show) CYMATIQUES III, Centre PHI, Montréal, CA.
In My Ears
(for Maryanne)
In My Ears (for Maryanne) is the album version of the performance Maryanne Inside My Ears, that was commissioned by Le Mans Sonore and premiered as a 35 minute performance in the anechoic chamber of the CTTM Le Mans in January 2024.
Most of the sounds and algorithms were conceived during a residency at Sporobole in Sherbrooke, Canada, during fall 2023.
In My Ears (for Maryanne) is a tribute to the work of American composer and sound artist Maryanne Amacher. Algorithmically composed using SuperCollider, the album highlights several aspects of her work: amplitude dynamics, sound-walk-inspired temporal structure and, above all, the musical exploration of distortion product otoacoustic emissions*. The composition encourages the creation of “perceptual geographies,” to use Amacher’s terms, by making space, body and ear resonate at the same time. Thus, by alternating scales of perception within the temporality of an unfolding landscape, In My Ears (for Maryanne) is a sound experience that is both delicate and visceral, essentially physical.
* Distortion product otoacoustic emissions are sounds emitted by the inner ear when it is stimulated by two pure tones of close frequencies, generally between 1000 hz and 4000 hz at a certain amplitude. In response, the inner ear produces harmonic artifacts, resulting in a buzzing effect in the auditory canal.
“Even with the SuperCollider levels of programming, there is heart here”
Beach Sloth — In My Ears (for Maryanne)
“The basic samples, gently shifted against one another,
give rise to the most delicate and ever-changing layers.”
Karsten Zimalla, Westzeit [translated from German]
Credits
Composition, SuperCollider programming, mixing and mastering : Estelle Schorpp
Album cover : Juliette Francine Frenay
Production and financial support : MITACS, Sporobole, Le Mans Sonore
Composition, SuperCollider programming, mixing and mastering : Estelle Schorpp
Album cover : Juliette Francine Frenay
Production and financial support : MITACS, Sporobole, Le Mans Sonore
Shows :
03.06.26
12.07.25
06.12.24
06.04.24
14.03.24
02.03.24
20.02.24
02.02.24
20-21-22.01.24
12.07.25
06.12.24
06.04.24
14.03.24
02.03.24
20.02.24
02.02.24
20-21-22.01.24
KM28, Berlin, DE.
Norberg Festival, Norberg, SE.
Recombinant Festival, San Fransisco, USA.
Point d’ouïe #3, Sherbrooke, CA.
Électrochoc#4 — AKOUSMA, Montréal, CA.
Eastern Bloc X Ateliers Belleville, Montréal, CA.
Acousmodromes, Marseille, FR.
Unit 44, Dublin, IE.
BIENNALE DU SON — LE MANS SONORE, Le Mans, FR.
Norberg Festival, Norberg, SE.
Recombinant Festival, San Fransisco, USA.
Point d’ouïe #3, Sherbrooke, CA.
Électrochoc#4 — AKOUSMA, Montréal, CA.
Eastern Bloc X Ateliers Belleville, Montréal, CA.
Acousmodromes, Marseille, FR.
Unit 44, Dublin, IE.
BIENNALE DU SON — LE MANS SONORE, Le Mans, FR.
A Conversation Between a Partially Educated Parrot and a Machine
A performance for augmented gramophone and computer - 2023
Through the use of both original and digitalized birds’ recordings archives from the 1930’s, this performance explores the historical and sonic relationships between birds, humans and sound reproduction technologies. In the late 19th century, Eldridge Johnson, head of Victor Records, said about the phonograph that it “sounded much like a partially educated parrot with a sore throat and a cold in the head” (Johnson, quoted in Kenney, Recorded Music, 47). This is the same phonograph that Ludwig Koch used in 1889 to make the first recording of a white-rumped shama in a zoo in Frankfurt. This comparison gave rise to the idea of establishing a creative dialogue between sound technologies (old and new) and birdsongs.
The performance recontextualizes the history of birdsong’s recordings by blending documentary archives, shellac records, gramophone and contemporary interactive algorithmic technologies. The project emphasizes a dynamic back-and-forth between several types of discourse (documentary and fictional), technology (computer and gramophone), gesture and sound (bird song and technological artifacts). In so doing, A Conversation Between a Partially Educated Parrot and a Machine offers an immersive sound experience in which birds, machines and humans make music together.
“An exquisite work of performative electronic music.”
Lucia Ronchetti — Venice Biennale Musica
“A formidable diffraction of creative materials.”
PAN M 360 — Akousma
Credits:Research, Conception, Composition, Programming and Performance : Estelle Schorpp
Production and financial support : La Biennale di Venezia - CIMM, Centro Informatico Musicale Multimedia, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec (CALQ)
Main mentor : Miller Puckette
Mentors : Kyoka, Brigitta Muntendorf, Thiery Coduys, Oscar Pizzo, Gerfried Stocker, Ali Nikrang, Yoko Shimizu
Sound archives : BBC
Production and financial support : La Biennale di Venezia - CIMM, Centro Informatico Musicale Multimedia, Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec (CALQ)
Main mentor : Miller Puckette
Mentors : Kyoka, Brigitta Muntendorf, Thiery Coduys, Oscar Pizzo, Gerfried Stocker, Ali Nikrang, Yoko Shimizu
Sound archives : BBC
Shows :
SIGHT + SOUND, Eastern Bloc, Montréal, CA.
live@cirmmt, MMR, Montréal, CA.
Substrat, SAT, Montréal, CA.
AKOUSMA, Usine C, Montréal, CA.
BIENNALE MUSICA 2023, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, Venice, IT.
live@cirmmt, MMR, Montréal, CA.
Substrat, SAT, Montréal, CA.
AKOUSMA, Usine C, Montréal, CA.
BIENNALE MUSICA 2023, Teatro Piccolo Arsenale, Venice, IT.
Anémochories are a series of generative and/or interactive
compositions controlled by the wind. Algorithmically conceived, the
compositions unfold and adapt to different situations, places, devices,
temporalities and formats of diffusion such as installation, acousmatic
concert, or performance.
Wind is a meteorological phenomenon that plays several important roles in ecosystems. The one that interests me in particular is the phenomenon of anemochory, which is the dispersion of diaspores. This is the main mode of dispersal for about 90% of plant species. The wind disperses life.
Anémochories#1, the first iteration of the series was specifically conceived for the outdoor multichannel sound system of Art Center Sporobole, Sherbrooke, Canada. The generative composition uses wind force data to subtly vary sounds, structures and space. The overall aesthetic of this piece is an aesthetic of the "near-inaudible", thought for the transient place that is the street. The sound materials are subtly and plausibly integrated into the sound environment of the street and the structure slowly unfolds in time and space, playing with the threshold of perception. Like the wind that spreads the living without our knowledge, I propose a work that unfolds with or without us. Anémochories#1 was inspired by soundwalks around the city, and was meant to be a point of listening to an elusive landscape in its entirety.
Wind is a meteorological phenomenon that plays several important roles in ecosystems. The one that interests me in particular is the phenomenon of anemochory, which is the dispersion of diaspores. This is the main mode of dispersal for about 90% of plant species. The wind disperses life.
Anémochories#1, the first iteration of the series was specifically conceived for the outdoor multichannel sound system of Art Center Sporobole, Sherbrooke, Canada. The generative composition uses wind force data to subtly vary sounds, structures and space. The overall aesthetic of this piece is an aesthetic of the "near-inaudible", thought for the transient place that is the street. The sound materials are subtly and plausibly integrated into the sound environment of the street and the structure slowly unfolds in time and space, playing with the threshold of perception. Like the wind that spreads the living without our knowledge, I propose a work that unfolds with or without us. Anémochories#1 was inspired by soundwalks around the city, and was meant to be a point of listening to an elusive landscape in its entirety.
Credits :
Research, Conception, Composition, Programming : Estelle Schorpp
Production and financial support : Sporobole, Hexagram
Exhibited
2021Anémochories#1 was specifically created in June 2021 for the multiphonic sound system of La Vitrine of Art Center Sporobole in Sherbrooke, Canada.
It was also adapted to be streamed on the sound immersion platform “Déjà-vu”.
2021Anémochories#1 was specifically created in June 2021 for the multiphonic sound system of La Vitrine of Art Center Sporobole in Sherbrooke, Canada.
It was also adapted to be streamed on the sound immersion platform “Déjà-vu”.
2022
It was also played in April 2022 for PULS III: Ljudbänken @ Skeppsholmen, Audiorama, Stokholm, SE.
It was also played in April 2022 for PULS III: Ljudbänken @ Skeppsholmen, Audiorama, Stokholm, SE.
