Between Alsace and England.
Anew perspective on new music: this is the credo of this young collective of nine musicians, founded in 2017 by Emiliano Gavito and British clarinettist Adam Starkie, who trained at the Strasbourg Conservatoire.

Flute, clarinet, violin, cello, guitar, accordion, oboe, percussion and voice. In addition to its atypical line-up, how would you define lovemusic, in three words?

Creation: since 2017, we've been commissioning five new pieces a year. We've had to make financial sacrifices to be able to do this.

Innovation: we wanted to propose an original instrumental line-up to create rarer combinations of instruments and timbres. For example, we didn't want to include a piano in the collective.

Visual: we experiment. The first year we worked with two set designers. On stage, we do quite theatrical things, with costumes and movement. The music is always in the foreground, but the visual dimension is important. It's an effective way for the audience to enter these repertoires. What's more, we talk a lot with the audience between pieces: we tell anecdotes about rehearsals, working with composers... We're not dressed all in black and frozen behind the music stand!

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How do you choose the composers whose pieces you're going to perform or commission?

I listen a lot, and spend a lot of time researching online, on composers' Youtube channels and on Soundcloud, which is a mine. As making records is becoming rarer and rarer, it's easier to go and see what the composer is posting directly on Soundcloud. I recommend it to anyone who wants to make new discoveries! Our collaboration with the Conservatoire and the Haute école des arts du Rhin (Hear) is invaluable: Daniel d'Adamo immediately set up concerts for young composers, and I always go and listen to the students' pieces. It's very beneficial for an ensemble to see what's being done in conservatory composition classes. We can spot the talents of the younger generation. Students in the same class often come from several countries: their influences are diverse and rich.

Would lovemusic 's DNA be different if you weren't based in Strasbourg?

Yes. We're all products - even if I don't like that word - of the conservatory and our class. Every time the teaching or guest composer changed, it changed the identity of the class. At the Conservatoire de Strasbourg, we were really immersed in the profession before doing it for real, and the emulation is unique! Even if we do concert tours elsewhere in Europe and around the world, we still want to have a base for our work here. Strasbourg remains a modest-sized city, but such a profusion is incredible. Since 2019, we've been giving a series of five concerts a year at Strasbourg's university library. Despite this, we have to fight hard: this is our third season, and the other Strasbourg ensembles are several years older. We have to create demand! We give between 15 and 20 concerts a year, and we don't have an administrator or production manager: we do everything ourselves. The first few years of an ensemble's life are a trial by fire. We have to prove ourselves over a long period of time before we can get the grants we deserve.

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You're British. How do you explain the fact that there's so little interaction between the British contemporary scene and France?

It's very strange: we're so close geographically, and yet so far apart! During my master's degree in clarinet at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg, I prepared a project called "An Englishman in Strasbourg". The contemporary pieces I played were Scottish and English: they weren't known at all in Strasbourg, so the music sounded downright exotic. Young British composers are not well known in France, and vice versa, even if a few names like Philip Venablescome up from time to time.

Last year, we toured England thanks to the support of the Franco-British Diaphonique Foundation. But the Brexit is making exchanges even more difficult... The visas you need to go and play are very expensive and now very complicated to get. The logistics are already discouraging! You also have to understand that the artistic system is totally different from France: in the UK, composers are often university professors, as in the USA. There are many more teaching positions available, and they are more highly valued.

See you soon on lovemusic in concert in Strasbourg:

• portrait of Zad Moultaka at the ONR's Salle Ponelle on June 6
• educational project with students from Daniel d'Adamo, HEAR and André Serre-Milan on June 26 in Reims

Interview by Suzanne Gervais