You mention seeing the festival’s operas growing up. Was there a standout performance for you?

I liked Shostakovich’s The Nose. Mostly I liked Baroque music a lot. Although most of the things that struck me musically in my life were not at that festival.

What were your artistic influences?

Techno was really big in my town — in the South of France in general in the early 2000s. There was definitely a scene, so that’s the music I grew up on. I still keep techno in mind as a structure today when making experimental music. When you think about it, it’s really similar to Steve Reich and all these minimalist composers. I made techno a little bit when I was younger, but working with machines, the process itself, was a little boring to me.

It’s interesting that you say that: You’ve also said in the past that virtuosity doesn’t interest you, and yet with electronic music you could arrange it so that you hit the perfect note each time.

I am in some sense always jealous of electronic sets in that way. I play a lot of noise shows where people have all-electronic sets and it really takes over the room. So then part of my practice as a cellist who plays amplified music was to reach that level of sonic power. But it doesn’t need to reach perfection. I’m more interested in the wall of sound and its power than playing a piece perfectly.

And I also politically don’t like the idea of perfection. I was in conservatory for a long time and they were very strict, and that’s not a good way to learn music. I still love classical music, I still listen to it. But when I think of electronics, I don’t think about perfection, I think about sound.

Can you say more about that wall of sound?

I like physical experiences when I go to see live music, which is why I’m attracted to electronic music a lot. I go to a lot of noise shows that are made for you to listen with earplugs. Pretty early on, I also got into sound installations. I always liked art overall and installation art and thought sound installations were the coolest thing ever. So there was that, too: the sound from a conceptual level. There’s more in sound art than in classical music, for instance.

At the same time, it seems like a lot of the binaries between classical and nonclassical — even between “perfect” and “bad” — are going away. You’ve spoken to that as well in the past around preferring subjectivity to objectivity.

I think there’s definitely a shift. For instance, with the new musical director of the New York Philharmonic [Jaap van Zweden], their opening concert this season includes in it soloists Brandon Lopez and Nate Wooley. I know Brandon and Nate, and they’re amazing musicians and they stuck to authentically experimental music. And they’re both extremely virtuosic players, who could just as easily be successful as “mainstream” musicians, which is a much smoother career path. So I see things like that, more emerging roles, and I think that’s really cool. I don’t have any radical opinion about apart from the fact that I’m happy about it.

I think in all of music the binaries and the boundaries are erasing themselves. There’s really a cross-pollination. I play, for lack of a better term, as an ambient-experimental cellist on a lot of rock bills, on dance music bills. It’s nice to try and promote a diversity through curating, which is what I’ve done for a long time. It’s even more efficient, actually, to diversify yourself as a performer. I say no to gigs sometimes, of course, but I’ve tried to make an effort in the past year to not say no to gigs that are booked by people who aren’t from my scene. Even if it’s a small gig, I’ll still do it just for that reason. That’s been really fantastic to me.

What was one of the gigs you’re glad you didn’t say no to?

A few months ago, I played this experimental music bill; very experimental, but very diverse with hip-hop–inspired stuff, dance music, jazz… There were five acts and I was the only white person on that bill. And that’s never happened to me, because experimental music is often super white. I can’t believe I’ve been playing music in New York for six years and I’ve only been the only white person on a bill once. So that’s also the diversity in new music I’m talking about, because in new music and improvised music it’s a really white crowd. I was kind of sick of that scene of “academic” experimental music. It really has blindfolds. People come and criticize and put their hands on their chin like, hmm… But music, I think a lot of it is about having fun. That’s why I like playing on these more diverse bills, they’re exciting. Every single band is something new. And that’s why I moved away from the classical world, because sitting down in a huge amphitheater and dressing up for it is kind of boring—a sheep attitude. And that’s ridiculous. I mean, that’s truly ridiculous.

I remember when studying classical music – which I did for a really long time, 14 years – hearing reactions like, That’s not how you play Mozart! Did you think this was Brahms? You can’t just legato it whenever you feel like it. It’s just kind of painful, you know? I don’t know any classical players who have attained classical virtuosity without being mistreated. My teacher was really harsh on me, and never told me I was good even though he actually thought I was good. That’s kind of the norm, and it’s just a way of learning things that’s so rigid. It reminds me of these old French films from the ‘50s where they snap your hand with a ruler at school.

Like The 400 Blows?

Exactly, like Antoine Doinel in The 400 Blows. Even when I went to Bard, which is super hippied-out, the conservatory professors were still super harsh. I quickly abandoned the classical thing at Bard and got a new cello teacher, Alex Waterman, this brilliant cellist. He taught me how to appreciate tones and approach the cello beyond western scales. We studied the history of Pythagorean tuning, equal temperament, and so on. That was incredible. I think Alex is a huge influence on who I’ve become as a cellist.

What was that like, going from the strictness of the conservatory to this more open exploration?

It was extremely liberating. It’s not because it’s a free-for-all or a do-anything-you-want. I’m an extremely, extremely hard-working person. It may seem like something kind of lazy – “dropped the hardcore classical world to have fun” – but I myself am working just as much. It’s just that the process is more interesting. You have to practice your music, but it’s also research and you have to inquire within yourself and put a lot of thought into it. And you learn a lot from it. If I spend 50 hours working on my own stuff with electronics, I learn more than by playing Mozart for 50 hours.