My fifth recording on the Naïve label will be of electronic music! I’ve been working on the project with two extremely specialised producers, and the group is going to have a name: Sing Sing, like the prison. I’m very pleased with this turn of events, and we’ve been able to create just the atmosphere I wanted, very “spaced out”, similar to what Massive Attack sounds like. I have a sort of carte blanche this autumn at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, and will be giving three concerts. The first is a recital of Italian and English baroque music with continuo, then a jazz recital with Bruno Angelini, a pianist I met while preparing the Carte Blanche project. I wanted to do a jazz programme, but wasn’t really sure how to go about it, or – especially - whom to contact. Joëlle Astier, who works at the Châtelet, gave me Bruno Angelini’s name. We’ll be performing new takes on some old standards, real made-to-measure versions. The third concert will be of my own compositions based on haiku, with Bruno Angelini on the piano again and a double bass jazz player. Of course, I’m not considering a new career, although things are going really well for me at the moment…an opportunity came up and I fully intend to seize it! I’m extremely happy because three projects I’ve been working on for a long time will be coming together in one short period, and with very good musicians taking part.

After Gérard Lesne the singer, audiences will be getting to know Gérard Lesne the composer.

Yes! There were two decisive encounters in this area. Around 1995 I spent a lot of time with the composer Jean-Philippe Goude, who had done a lot of work in advertising.He introduced me to the world of parallel contemporary music, which led me to the decision to write my own music on Japanese haiku texts for Il Seminario Musicale. I’d actually been thinking about doing this since 1993. It everything works out, and I think it should, infinite horizons will be opening up for me… and they’ll only come to an end when I’ve gone as far as I can with this minimalist poetry, which I absolutely adore. I don’t plan on making my mark in contemporary music in the usual way. I’d call my music “light”, quasi-tonal, yet not completely so. I’m especially interested in the relationship between the text and the music. Haiku portrays a fleeting impression, a brief moment. One of them goes, “A flower fell from a branch, and rose up to it again. It was a butterfly.” I’m fond of repetitive music – though I certainly don’t mean minimalist music – and I repeat the same text many times over. The result is something like French song. It’s written for piano, positive organ, violin, and very simple – very ‘zen’, you could say – percussion instruments.

You’ll also be collaborating with other composers.

In my, shall we say, “contemporary” projects, there’s another composer involved, Frank Krawczyk. Frank has completely become a part of my universe. He’s fascinated with my voice and my timbre. He asked me to sing two short Mahler Lieder at his own Carte Blanche at the Châtelet. Everything went marvellously and we’ve begun another much bigger project with the Royaumont Foundation, which also includes an aesthetician, Christian Boltanski. He’s one of the most prominent people at the moment in the plastic arts. Our project is quite original, and is based on Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past, with arrangements of Mahler’s music and such improbable elements as a child’s accordion and an Indian organ. Frank Krawczyk has helped me feel a bit more at ease with contemporary music.