Name: Alice Hebborn
Nationality: Belgian
Occupation: Composer
Current release: Alice Hebborn’s new album Saisons is out December 6th 2024 via Western Vinyl.

If you enjoyed this Alice Hebborn interview and would like to know more about her work, visit her on Facebook,.  



When I listen to music, I see shapes, objects and colours. What happens in your body when you're listening? Do you listen with your eyes open or closed?

I associate music with images. And when I compose, I maintain this connection from the very beginning of creation by seeking inspiration in the visual arts.

I write music of soundscapes: the action unfolds through juxtaposition, inviting the listener to wander through an imaginary fauna and flora. The connection with imagery helps me compose this music: when we look at a painting, we can take it all in with a glance, but we need to observe it for a long time to grasp all its details.

When I work with musicians, I often speak to them using images; it allows for an immediate understanding. It’s as if there is a direct layer of understanding in the visual sense that we don’t have initially with sound. It’s also because of this impossibility of direct understanding that I love music: it’s an abstract art, naturally resulting in complexity, even if it’s meant to express something simple. This complexity within simplicity is the idea I associate with nature.

To compose, I need to position myself as a listener, with my eyes open or closed, in a concentrated, open, or distracted manner. These different modes of listening allow me to develop a sensitivity to each layer that makes up my music.

Sometimes, while working, I reach an almost meditative state where the present moment is fully engaged. This brings me great calm and has even been healing. I think I am searching for this state, and my music reflects it.

How do listening with headphones and listening through a stereo system change your experience of sound and music?

Listening with headphones allows me to have profound moments of introspection with music.

Often, I walk through the countryside in the morning while listening to an album. It brings me a lot of emotion, and it’s a special moment to immerse myself in what other artists offer. With the rhythm of walking, I move from one idea to another, completely free from the need to construct anything. I am solely in a state of listening, feeling, and subconscious experience. The familiar landscape unfolding before my eyes through the seasons resonates differently depending on the music I’m listening to. Sometimes, the music reveals things within the landscape, but I often think it’s the other way around.

For me, the stereo system brings a sense of distance, something more analytical. It’s more closely tied to my working moments. In fact, I can’t bear to work with headphones on for too long—it gives me a sense of overload, and I lose the ability to really hear what I’m doing. The stereo system allows me to listen to the same detail repeatedly without getting tired of it.

Do music and sound feel “material” to you? Does working with sound feel like you're sculpting or shaping something?

Often, there is an intellectual idea at the beginning of the composition, but then I move away from it to simply connect with the material.

At first, I conceive of sound material as a texture. I create freely, without aesthetic judgments, trying to stay true to my initial idea. Once I start shaping it, the search for beauty, for what sounds good, guides my decisions.

This impression of sculpting helps me to envision the overall form of the album, to step back and view this soundscape from a distance. It gives me a sense of freedom, and it’s a very playful moment.

How important is sound for our overall well-being and in how far do you feel the "acoustic health" of a society or environment is reflective of its overall health?

In my personal experience, sound has a significant impact. I was born in the city, and when I moved to the countryside, I was struck by how quickly my body adapted to the quiet. The sound stimulation of the city would hit me as soon as I returned, and after several days, it felt exhausting. It was as if my body had an innate need for this calm without my fully realizing it.

Being surrounded by constant noise stimulates my brain continuously and brings tension into the body. I need the artistic and cultural richness of the city, but I also need breaks to be able to fully appreciate it.

“Today, the world suffers from an overpopulation of sound (…) at this point, it becomes impossible to know, when there is a message, what to listen to.” — R. Murray Schafer, The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World

We are drowning in an excess of information coming from all directions, making it difficult to discern truth from falsehood. This overwhelming flow of information accelerates divisions within society, fuelling violence and destruction.

I believe that the soundscape of the world follows the same pattern: too many engine sounds prevent other species from existing within the sound spectrum. This hinders our awareness of their presence and leads to a lack of consideration for other forms of life. This disrespect for their lives leads to their destruction, and whether we like it or not, to ours as well, because we are all interconnected.

We can surround us with sound every second of the day. The great pianist Glenn Gould even considered this the ultimate delight. How do you see that yourself and what importance does silence hold?

Personally, I love to be surrounded by music as much as possible. I need it to be easy to have music playing at any time and in every room in my home.

At the same time, if I don’t have extended periods of silence, I lose the ability to truly listen. With constant sound, emotions stop resonating within me—I no longer know what I like or dislike, or why. Silence allows me to truly savour a sound and makes it possible for music to exist.

Sound, song, and rhythm are all around us, from animal noises to the waves of the ocean. What, if any, are some of the most moving experiences you've had with these non-human-made sounds?

The river ecosystem is a foundational inspiration for my writing. When I walk along a river, each step allows me to hear something different. Many layers create the overall sound of the river.

You can listen from one spot and get an impression of a whole, but as soon as you change your position, another song is revealed. The river’s flow, putting every element in constant, irreversible motion, reveals something to me about the nature of life and reminds me to focus on what is essential.

“Are not our bodies equally subject to the law of continual transformation? What we were yesterday, what we are today, tomorrow we will be no more.”

— Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 15

Seth S. Horowitz called hearing the “universal sense” and emphasised that it was more precise and faster than any of our other senses, including vision. How would our world be different if we paid less attention to looks and listened more instead?

A personal experience made me reflect on the importance of hearing: my daughter had a hearing issue that, fortunately, was expected to resolve with growth. We observed that this hearing difficulty kept her in a bubble and tended to isolate her socially. It impacted her self-confidence, as she was always a step behind others in understanding a situation, which made her
wary of the unknown.

Hearing provides us with a sense of security, likely due to our primal instinct as wild animals that need a certain level of alertness to ensure survival. Once this need for security is fulfilled, we feel more confident in ourselves, which helps us move beyond fear of others—an element that is currently one of the most destructive forces in our society.

Fear of others fuels racism, sexism, and the destruction of life. Self-confidence and trust in others are essential for happiness and for positively contributing to community life. This reflection makes me realize the profound importance of listening in our society today.

Tell me about some of the albums or artists that you love specifically for their sound, please.

Anna Meredith’s album ANNO: Four Seasons. In it, I hear a portrayal of nature today: chaotic and disrupted by human activity, yet still deeply beautiful.



The Roots of the Movement by Pauline Oliveros beautifully illustrates the idea of matter in continuous transformation. This album was a foundational influence for the piano writing in Saisons.



I think there are similarities in the compositional approach: with pianist Nao Momitani, we explored a lot based on graphic scores that allowed for improvisation, working with felt time rather than strict time.

[Read our Pauline Oliveros interview]

Contemplation by Helene Vogelsinger was a shared reference with the mixer Antonin Simon, helping us bring depth and perspective to Saisons.



[Read our Helene Vogelsinger interview]

August Harp by Sarah Davachi immerses listeners in an almost meditative state. Each frequency is crafted with care, and every element of sound holds significance, creating sonic landscapes akin to painting



[Read our Sarah Davachi interview]
[Read our Sarah Davachi interview about her creative process]

Sunergy by Suzanne Ciani and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. This music, to me, captures the raw power of nature.

[Read our Suzanne Ciani interview]
[Read our Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith interview]

For interested readers, what are books, websites, articles or other sources of information you recommend for them to educate themselves on the topic?

Several books have inspired me in the writing of Saisons:

The Wild Soundscape by Bernie Krause. Through his field recordings in regions nearly untouched by human presence, Bernie Krause discovered that all the animals and insects in these pristine areas place their voices in relation to each other, never occupying the same frequency as their neighbors.
Together, they form a large orchestra that listens to and harmonizes with itself. Krause proposes the theory that this auditory experience has left a deep imprint on our reptilian brain and may be the origin of our music. In contrast, he observes that in areas degraded by human activity, the wildlife’s sound spectrum is severely impoverished, and there is a chaotic, dissonant noise instead.

Quel monde voulons-nous? by Starhawk. She defends the idea that by freeing ourselves from systems of domination (which we maintain both between individuals and with the environment), we will be able to live in a viable world. She critiques our current mindset, which separates humans from nature, when in reality, we are all interconnected.

The Song of the World by Jean Giono (known as the poet of nature). The novel tells the story of humans in harmony with nature, with each character connected to a natural element. The rhythm of the seasons underpins the entire novel. Jean Giono uses a language rich in detail to describe an abundantly flourishing nature. Written in the 1930s, reading it now, I realize I can no longer hear nature as he described it.