Strasbourg is a family affair.
Yérri-Gaspar Hummel' s grandparents ran a bakery in the town center, opposite the cathedral. The future designer grew up in Nordheimm, in a bilingual French-German family. His parents were musicians who traveled the world, but they were also committed to the Alsatian repertoire. The Franco-German border runs through the musician's veins, and he studied in both countries.
When music lovers think of Strasbourg, they immediately think of Musica. But it's not the only festival in town dedicated to creation! You created Exhibitronic, which celebrated its tenth anniversary last year...
These two projects go back a long way... When I was in high school, in 1997, I was hooked on techno and electro music. I created my first collective, Utop. The association was renamed UT in 2004: at the time, I wanted to create an alternative cultural hub in an 800m2, four-storey building right in the center of town! A month later, we realized that it was far too ambitious: too many logistics, not enough support, not enough finances... Finally, I launched the Exhibitronic festival in 2010 with a program of concerts, installations, performances and workshops with a strong emphasis on electronic music. The aesthetics are very varied, from psychedelic guitar to prepared piano, but what the festival has in common over the past 10 years is that it brings together artists who, through gesture, define a different way of creating music and offer a different concert experience. One of my great memories is the 2012 edition, when we gave the very first electronic guitar concert in Strasbourg cathedral, with Duncan Pinhas!
And then you created another structure to promote musical creation in Strasbourg. Lab'Ut, a laboratory, a branch of your festival. What happens there?
Strasbourg had no residency laboratory for musical artists. Lab'ut was born in the wake of Exhibitronic. What was needed was a permanent venue to host artists in residence over the long term. In 2017, I bought an apartment downtown and began major renovations. Three years later, the studio is ready and fully equipped. We can record two to three people and make demos for artists. It's also a place of residence, an experimental composition space specialized in multichannel music, which welcomes all musicians: ensembles from Strasbourg as well as students from the Haute école des arts de Rhin. Multichannel and spatial music are booming: it's a new method of spatializing sound, which reproduces the physical sensation of sound. It's like walking through a forest, and hearing the sounds of nature all around you. Except that you're sitting on your sofa, headphones on. This requires special recording tools. Lab'Ut is on social networks and the 2021 program is online: we regularly organize online roundtables on art and technology. *

How do you encourage an already busy audience to discover the experimental music you promote?
We mustn't hesitate to break codes and vary formats. For example, in September 2019, we organized a workshop with the alternative club Kalt, which is to Strasbourg what Bergain is to Berlin! We set up three multichannel studios and ten artists took part: Hear students and techno enthusiasts. The concert lasted all night, from 11pm to 7am... and 800 people came to dance!
I believe in giving artists opportunities to explore. For the past two years, I've been a beekeeper. I have an apiary in the heart of Strasbourg, on the Quais Saint-Jean. I record my bees a lot, and I offer artists - musicians as well as visual artists - the chance to come and observe the hives, as part of their work. The workings of a beehive have a lot to offer artists. I'm planning to install harmless microphones in the hives soon, to further my work on bee music.
How are you coping with the pandemic?
As you can see, she's not stopping with her projects: Lab'Ut has still released its program, even if the meetings have so far taken place online. For me, as a composer, the Covid crisis has even been beneficial. I locked myself in a studio and looked back over 20 years, reviewing all my creations. Thanks to this retrospective, five albums will be released between 2021 and 2022. The Lab'ut team and I are even thinking of launching our own label. In particular, I'm very interested in creating music videos, to get our music out there more...
Interview by Suzanne Gervais