- PREMIERE: ZOO – “Own True Love” - October 7, 2021
- PREMIERE: Get nostalgic with ÖZLEM’s 1976-inspired ballad, “Electric Ladyland” - May 20, 2021
- PREMIERE: Personal Space – “Dad USA” - March 11, 2021
Set to delight audiences young, old and in-between, composer Raphael Mostel is preparing to bring a new production of his celebrated “Travels of Babar” multi-media experience to New York next week. Based on Jean de Brunhoff’s famous picture book of the same name, “Le Voyage de Babar,” Mostel has crafted a score to be played by eight musicians in time with projected illustrations.
To learn more about the “Travels of Babar,” GroundSounds interviewed Mostel shared below. Check it out and if you’re in New York, be sure to make it out to the Florence Gould Hall on November 2nd with a performance in French at 7:00pm and in English on November 3rd at 2:00pm and 4:00pm. Tickets are available here or at the box office.
Raphael Mostel's "TRAVELS OF BABAR," based on Jean de Brunhoff's classic book, brief performance clips from Raphael Mostel on Vimeo.
Can you tell us a little more on who you are and how you first got into making music?
At this point deep in the preparations for the U.S. premiere performances, I’m no longer sure who I am — too many hats I’m wearing.
As for first getting into music — that happened around the same time I learned to speak. No one in my family remembers which happened first. Even now I sometimes confuse one with the other, because my music always “speaks”. Come to The Travels of Babar, and you’ll understand!
What is your writing process like?
I let each project tell me what’s required. So each project has a different process. Wildly different! I love to explore and avoid repeating myself.
The music I composed and performed at Hiroshima and Nagaski for the victims of the atomic bombs came to me fully-formed in a dream, so the process of realizing it was finding and training the players. The Travels of Babar, on the other hand, has 46 different scenes — each composed in a different musical process — yet threaded together in the narrative through-line, and with multi-media yet!
What is your personal experience with Babar?
None. Then, out of the blue a letter arrived from a producer in Japan asking me to compose music for a Babar book. And as soon as I discovered The Travels of Babar, I fell in love with the wit, whimsy and depth that Jean de Brunhoff achieved in his illustrations with such simple means! It spurred me to create music that also rises to that magical combination.
What do you hope to attendees will take away with after these performances?
Absolute delight. I challenge anyone to listen to the music without at least a smile. And it’s usually much more than that — it’s magical to see adults become like kids again themselves! When the Berlin Philharmonic gave the world premiere of this new production of my Babar, the critics fell all over themselves saying they’d never seen an audience response like it. “Shouts of Joy!” reported one headline, then going on to describe “extremely three-dimensional music”!
Who are some of your biggest influences/favorite artists?
SO many! Both living and not. And there are tributes to many of them in the score of my Babar, hidden in every one of the 46 scenes. Some of the living ones are already in on the joke. See how many you can identify!
Where can we follow you and where can our readers catch you live next?
www.Mostel.com and SourceMusic.org
Immediately after this U.S. premiere in NYC Nov 2 & 3 of the full new production of the complete “Travels of Babar” in the original scoring for miniature orchestra of eight instruments, I’ll be preparing for the U.S. premiere of the new version for full orchestra by the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center.
Any partying thoughts? Open platform!
The more I witness the effect my Babar has on audiences, the more I realize how much it’s a musical message-in-a-bottle introducing the whole range of wonders and powers of concert music for coming generations to treasure.
I seem to have created one of the rare handful of concert-works that speaks to all ages, young and old, and all levels of sophistication.
If you’ll forgive the immodesty, there’s a good possibility my Travels of Babar may become the kind of entry-point for music that the Nutcracker has become for dance. Try listening to it and then see if you have any doubts. Need some joy?
