The Body of Sound: Ahmed Essyad’s Electroacoustic Music

«Art is life in the face of death», says Moroccan composer Ahmed Essyad in conversation with sound artist and researcher Gilles Aubry as part of his Norient Special Sawt, Bodies, Species. In this extended interview, Aubry speaks with Essyad about a great variety of topics, including performance in electroacoustic music, cultural roots and identity («my identity isn’t fixed»), the importance of music («music fructifies me. It’s my daily wine»), the voice and the body and its significance in the canon of Western art music («intelligence sent to the body produces insanity»), and, last but not least, nature and ecology («to make art, you have to reduce nature because it’s too complex»).