I started working on Trouée in February 2020 during a residency at Musiques & Recherches’ multiphonic studio. Sadly, the various Covid-19 lockdowns interrupted and delayed my composition process several times. I finally completed the music in March 2021.

I had to explain those peculiar circumstances, because they obviously influenced me and they were in tune with the topic I wanted to address: waiting. Not any kind of waiting, though: waiting to become pregnant, that insidious period that can feel like an eternity to so many women, that time of increased vigilance where each late period is a reason for hope quickly brushed aside by a negative pregnancy test.

Those months stretch out to the rhythm of medical appointments and intimate interrogations about that seemingly incompetent body. It is a time when the mind goes back and forth between desire and doubt. And let us not forget the weight of society’s injunctions: “Stop thinking about it and it will happen naturally,” some people repeat, like a simplistic mantra that minimizes emotional fatigue and turns waiting into personal guilt.

How should we approach waiting, fear it or savour it? Personally, I have a hard time suffering any kind of waiting. So, creating this piece in pandemic times allowed me to accept waiting more serenely — and stop thinking about it. I hope that you will appreciate the amount of waiting in my music.

— Sophie Delafontaine [English translation: François Couture, vi-26]

Trouée [Gap] was realized in 2020-21 at the Métamorphoses d’Orphée studio of Musiques & Recherches in Ohain (Belgium) and was premiered on August 29, 2021 as part of the concert Électrobelge at Jardin d’Orphée, in Ohain. Trouée was composed with the support of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles — Service des musiques.

Premiere

• August 29, 2021, Électrobelge, Jardin d’Orphée — Musiques & Recherches, Ohain (Belgium)