Blue Roses by Alban Schelbert

Balancing beauty and disruption, Zurich-based composer Alban Schelbert presents excerpts from the score for choreographer Thibault Lac’s solo dance performance Blue Roses, which premiered at Centre national de la danse Paris in 2024. The music Schelbert developed for the acclaimed piece blends camp-infused chamber music with disruptive production techniques, combining strings and flutes to create a layered, immersive auditory experience.

Far from functioning as mere background, Schelbert’s score engages in an active dialogue with Lac’s choreography and dramaturgy, musically echoing and amplifying the performance’s narrative. It shifts fluidly between ambient textures and more structured compositions, mirroring Blue Roses’ exploration of gender, identity, and transformation.

Schelbert’s original soundtrack deepens the emotional and symbolic dimensions of the piece, while also standing firmly on its own as a compelling listening experience.

Two compositions from the score are now published via Präsens Editionen as a digital double single and for streaming—following Schelbert’s 2023 Präsens debut Candid III, which featured vocal contributions by Tenzin Yeshe Gyaltag, Hanne Lippard, and Kim-Lillian Strebel.

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Alban Schelbert is a Zurich-based composer working in visual and performing arts as well as film. He has extensively collaborated with artists such as Alexandra Bachzetsis and Price, and has scored a range of movies including the experimental short movie La Cordà and the documentary Only Ghosts in the Waves, among others. Schelbert’s compositions for performance and visual art have been presented at Centre Pompidou Paris, Art Basel, and Tanzquartier Wien.

Founded in 2011 in the process of launching zweikommasieben, Switzerland-based publishing house and music label Präsens Editionen has released music on vinyl, cassette, CD, and digital formats—alongside magazines, books, and other printed matter. Its audio catalog includes works by Anna Homler, Robert Turman, Belia Winnewisser, Samuel Reinhard, Sopraterra (Magda Drozd and Nicola Genovese), as well as Anom Vitruv. Blue Roses marks the label’s third consecutive documentary-leaning release in 2025, following Martina Lussi’s The Weiertal EP and Samuel Savenberg’s As Bright As A Burning Star.

Präsens Editionen was founded in 2011 to give home to zweikommasieben Magazin. Ever since a bunch of magazines, books, zines, records, tapes and oddities have been published.

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