Alexis Ffrench: ‘It’s classical music that’s repackaged for the 21st century sensibility’

On the one hand, he has found it “unusual not to be travelling”; on the other, he says it has afforded him “chance to reconnect with family and be able to do things that one can do at home”.

“We had all sorts of ambitious plans for touring around the world in various countries and then back to the UK for the Barbican Hall and all the rest of it,” he says. “On one level it’s disappointing not to be able to play for audiences and also just to be able to manage audience expectations when those announcements are made, but I’m also conscious that there are people who are experiencing real hardship at the moment, I’m aware of people who’ve lost livelihoods and are having to move into jobs which are far removed from their chosen careers, so I think whatever issues I have need to be weighed against real world problems.”

Not that Ffrench, an alumnus of the Guildhall School of Music and the Royal Academy, has been twiddling his thumbs for the last seven months. As well as broadcasting on Scala Radio and curating playlists for Apple Music, he did an online performance from the Royal Albert Hall and has been doing piano tutorials on Facebook. “It has been very busy,” he says. “The first (his record company) Sony did was to ship me out a podcast home recording set-up so I could do promo from home. That had its own stresses, having to make things work. I’ve done promo for different countries – Canada most recently and the US. I’ve done a few remote concerts and stuff for Bose as well. It has been interesting and I probably wouldn’t have done it had we not been in the situation that we are in.

“For all musicians, one likes to think that audiences are able to hear music in full vision, as it were, with the full sonority of musical experience, and Zoom, good as it is, is slightly imperfect in terms of that full panoramic music experience but nonetheless it’s served a purpose and certainly kept me off the streets.”

He agrees with the idea that music lovers’ appetite for contemplative music has grown since the pandemic began, adding: “I read something to that effect, that audiences’ tastes have changed, I’m not sure they used the term dramatically but significantly in so much that people are looking for comfort and they’re looking to a different type of genre of music outside of their norm. I’ve been fortunate that I’ve seen an increase in streaming numbers. Whether or not that’s going to be sustained is going to be interesting, to see whether or not those audiences are going to stay with this music, but certainly statistically there is evidence to show that.”

As far as his new album Dreamland goes, Ffrench says the idea was to “write a body of music from which people could derive a sense of comfort and be something to transport them into an oasis of calm, and be that resting place that they could escape to”.

“Before lockdown I often received many communications from people telling me how their music has helped them through difficult periods in their life, particular challenges, and that’s always very moving to receive those notes,” he adds. “That’s really what inspired me to write Dreamland. It was then a little while after when this all hit and the notion of that seemed to resonate even more so as people found that they were wrestling with the restrictions, and also various issues to do with mental health, people have obviously found it very difficult in that regard with (things like) financial pressures.

“Daily I get emails and direct messages from people wanting to let me know how my music has helped them, and that’s always an important moment for me to be able to get to people that way and very special and humbling.”

Ffrench’s musical influences stretch far beyond the classical world. In his formative days, he listened to Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye and Ella Fitzgerald. “Growing up, my dad was a big fan of that kind of music and it really all went into the pot, if you like, along with Bach, Beethoven, Chopin, Bob Marley,” he says. “I ruminated on all that music and synthesised it and I guess it became a part of who I am. There’s so much music out there, it seems a shame to draw dividing lines between genres and either veer to one side or the other. I want to have it all, rather greedily.”

Similarly he is keen broaden the appeal of contemporary classical music, embracing the world of YouTube videos and social media and writing musical pieces that are three to four minutes long. “The people I work with are essentially pop companies, I’m managed by Modest Management, for instance, who used to manage One Direction and Olly Murs. It’s classical music that’s repackaged for the 21st century sensibility, I guess, in the same way that composers have innovated throughout the ages.”

His track Walk With Us is dedicated to the Black Lives Matter movement. Like many, he says he was “horrified” by the killing of George Floyd by police officers. “To many people around the world, not just white or black or any particular ethnicity, this is not an epiphany, the idea that black people and other minorities in the States and over here are oppressed and there is a sense of imbalance and iniquity,” he says. “That’s nothing new. I think one thing that the Black Lives Movement has successfully managed to debunk is the fact that it is over. What they’ve done is shone a spotlight on these issues as if to say ‘this is ongoing, it’s happening’.

“The issue of things being unequal is age-old but I think the nature of that particular event in the States, George Floyd’s murder, was so heinous and so horrific that anybody who looked at that the only appropriate response would be utter horror and disgust, and I was no different. As I woke up the next morning I had to literally steel myself looking at these images and reading about it and dealt with it in my own way. I think the first thing I did was I went down to the piano and improvised a 35-minute opera, I had to get it out, this moment of horror.

“It was sort of frozen until I asked some of the people I work with to help with a response that I wanted to do on my socials, but I wanted to do something meaningful. I’d read all about Black Lives Matter and the commentaries with people disagreeing about some of the elements of what they do, but I think at the core we are talking about protecting human life and we’re talking about respect and love and equality. If we love ourselves, love our brothers and our sisters then this should matter to everyone, so for me it’s not a matter if you’re black or white or Latino, this is about human values. I wanted to do something in response to that, to show my solidarity.

“I stand by it, I’m proud of it and I don’t see it in any way divisive. I think the sad thing is that it’s become political, the fact that we hear ‘protect this life and not this’, it’s a sad indictment of the way we’re living and how we communicate with each other and how we tend to see the world in terms of these dividing lines.

“For me, it’s just a very authentic response, not political. It’s just something I’ve not chosen to hide from, that’s all. I’ve lent my musical voice to this particular issue to show my solidarity. I’m grateful that my commercial partners at Sony have stood side by side on me on that as well. The net proceeds from the artist and the record side will be going to support that movement.”

Dreamland is out on October 9. www.alexisffrenchmusic.com