Ibrahim Maalouf is a Franco-Lebanese trumpeter, composer in particular of film music, arranger, producer and professor of improvisation and trumpet. No style escapes her, everything is inspiration. In 2017, he received the César for best film score for In the forests of Siberia. He just released a new album Capacity to Love and is on tour throughout France.
franceinfo: This is your 17ᵉ album and the most urban of all. Why this title: Capacity to love ?
Ibrahim Maalouf: We were in the studio with Gregory Porter. We were working and he asked me: “But tell me, what is your album about? What is this music about?“I gave him a kind of monologue where I tell all the philosophy behind the album. And with his legendary phlegm, he looks at me and says: “But really, you’re talking about our ability to love each other“. And that gave the name of the track on which he sang, and that also inspired me, in parallel, to keep this idea, the summary of all this philosophy with these two words.
It effectively becomes a title philosophy, an album philosophy with this hand stretched out towards the other. It’s a reality. You speak of identity within this work. Was it important to tell that?
Our ability to love others depends a lot on our ability to love ourselves already.
Ibrahim Maaloufat franceinfo
I noticed that 99% of the times when I face racism, I realize, by talking to the person, that they themselves do not like themselves. And our ability to love ourselves is before loving others, already, to love ourselves, to be comfortable in our shoes, to be confident, to be serene. And then, all of a sudden, something opens up.
You were born in the middle of the civil war in Lebanon. It was November 5. Declared, because of the bombardments, a month later. I think that says a lot about your legitimacy to tell this story, of the capacity to love. Was this cultural heritage and this family heritage a heavy burden when you arrived in France?
It’s funny that you say that because, often, when we start to speak a little publicly, and that’s my case, even if I’m not a pop star, and very often it is delegitimized because I am Lebanese. I am told: “Yeah, but what is he talking about? It speaks of love for peoples, of difference and of multiculturalism. He has only to look in his country, what it has given”. When in fact, it’s completely the opposite, precisely. Lebanon is the very opposite of what multiculturalism is. You are told about all the religions, about the 17 religious communities that live together. It is completely false. These communities have never really lived together. They lived side by side, separated by invisible walls, but which are those of cultural differences, ethnic differences, religious differences, social differences. And so, I feel legitimate, not only because I am Lebanese and I was born during the war, but also because I see every day the ravages of communitarianism and social, cultural and economic segregation. I feel concerned because I tell myself that in France we have an incredible chance of being in a truly multicultural country, which is 1000 times less likely to fall into the traps of what Lebanon is going through today or what the United States is going through, what we like to say, from time to time and more and more often, in the media.
At home, what is always relieved is really the music, especially the trumpet. That’s what your father will teach you. What did he convey to you the most?
Petit, the trumpet, really, I didn’t particularly like that. But the fact of having classes every day, it trained me. It actually made me perform better. I took competitions growing up and to pass them, you really have to have self-confidence. It’s like sport, it’s competition. My father gave me that strength, which I then retransformed because it’s not music, it’s not art, it’s a way of thinking. I think he was formatted for this because he arrived as a peasant in France without having practically ever gone to school in Lebanon and he managed to become a classical trumpeter, a student at the Paris Conservatory with Maurice André who was just the greatest soloist of the time. So you have to have a huge desire for that. That’s what he communicated to me first and foremost. And as I grew up, I transformed that. I softened it all up. I made it all a little more relevant, more artistic. Let it be for something and it’s not just competition for competition’s sake or just be a very good trumpeter to be a very good trumpeter, but for it to be used for something, to communicate stories, emotions. I used it later, but it’s still basically what my dad gave me.
When you look at the featurings on this album, it’s really impressive: Shéléa Frazier, Grégory Porter, Sharon Stone. I have the impression that there is a real requirement also in the collaborations.
In quality, yes. I am quite sensitive to the fact that I am a child of competitions. I was always disappointed when I was second and not first, but in this process, I am very wrong and I accept to be wrong. So in this album, I’m sure there are a lot of people who will say to me: “Oh well, it’s a shame that title, it doesn’t speak to me, etc..” And that’s fine.
Even if I try to be in excellence, I allow myself to be wrong too.
Ibrahim Maaloufat franceinfo
The stage is also a continuation of this work. Is it a privileged relationship with the public?
I think I make music for the stage. I don’t hide it. I love making albums, I think it’s great. But there is a moment when the dimension of a song takes on its full meaning on stage. I need to be in contact, even visually, with the public, to feel that they are there, who is listening. That’s always been what punctuated my passion for music, it’s contact. It is the relationship with the other.
Ibrahim Maalouf is on tour throughout France, he will be on November 29 at the Accor Arena in Paris, December 2 in Reims, Strasbourg on the 3, Ramonville on the 6, Nancy on the 9, Rouen on the 13, etc.