“Engineering and musical composition have a lot in common”

Simon Prêcheur © Alain Herzog / 2023 EPFL

Simon Prêcheur © Alain Herzog / 2023 EPFL

Simon Prêcheur Llarena, an EPFL Master’s graduate in robotics, divides his time between precision engineering and musical composition.

We met up with Simon Prêcheur Llarena on 29 April, a couple of hours before his composition Le Carnaval des Planètes was set to be performed as part of EPFL’s open house. A 2022 EPFL graduate with a Master’s in robotics and a minor in space technology, he now wears two hats: that of an engineer working as a scientific assistant at the Instant-Lab on EPFL’s Neuchâtel campus, and that of a professional composer whose pieces are regularly performed by orchestras.

Prêcheur Llarena doesn’t believe the two fields are actually that different. “Engineering and musical composition have a lot more in common than you might think,” he explains. “Both require you to be creative, and both involve taking elements of existing knowledge to produce something new. For engineering, that knowledge is found in the literature, and for composition, it’s all the pieces that have already been written.”

Le Carnaval des Planètes during EPFL Open Days in April 2023 © Alain Herzog / 2023 EPFL

Le Carnaval des Planètes debuted in 2017 and will conclude this year. For Prêcheur Llarena, it was his breakthrough work. “I had to learn everything as I went through the process, from composition to orchestration,” he says. “Each piece explores a different style.” Taking inspiration from the musical scales developed by Johannes Kepler, the 17th-century German astronomer and mathematician who described the planets’ paths around the sun, Prêcheur Llarena conceived Le Carnaval des Planètes as a collection of pieces, each devoted to a planet of our solar system. “Kepler wanted to bring harmony to our solar system,” he says. “He took the planets’ elliptical path and orbital period and derived musical scales from them. The fundamental frequency of each scale corresponds to the orbital speed, and the scale’s range corresponds to the eccentricity of the ellipsis.” Prêcheur Llarena used these scales as “bricks” for building his musical composition, planet by planet. He also drew on the mythological and cultural connotations associated with each one. His work wouldn’t have been possible without the input of Laurent Eyer, an astrophysicist at the University of Geneva and specialist in Kepler’s scales.

Le Carnaval des Planètes being played at Lausanne Museum Night on 25 September 2021

After the performance at EPFL’s open house, Le Carnaval des Planètes was played by the Versoix Chamber Orchestra on 17 June at a ceremony to mark the 250th anniversary of the Sauverny Observatory. This concert included the very first performance of the final two pieces of the composition: “Uranus” and “Neptune.”

Orchestral composition is not Prêcheur Llarena’s only musical interest – he also plays guitar in Los Azulejos, a Spanish band that recasts classical pieces in flamenco style. Flamenco music has had a considerable influence on Prêcheur Llarena, who is from Spain. Los Azulejos gained fame in 2021 with a flamenco guitar remake of the third movement of Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata. This remake was viewed nearly a million times on social media, got press coverage and was broadcast on the France Musique and Classic FM radio stations. Los Azulejos is now recording an album of classical songs played on the guitar. “Our goal is to push the boundaries of classical guitar with innovative arrangements of pieces rarely played on the instrument, such as symphonies and piano sonatas.”

How is Prêcheur Llarena able to get so much done with just 24 hours in a day? “My job as an engineer is a 70% position, which leaves me exactly half of the week to work on my music,” he says. “I take a break when I need too, but in general, my weekends are pretty busy!”


Author: Marwan El Chazli

Source: People


Images to download

© Alain Herzog / 2023 EPFL
© Alain Herzog / 2023 EPFL
© Alain Herzog / 2023 EPFL
© Alain Herzog / 2023 EPFL
© Alain Herzog / 2023 EPFL
© Alain Herzog / 2023 EPFL

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