Fred Moten & Brandon López
20.11.2025
La Becque, in collaboration with ECAL/University of Art and Design Lausanne and Arsenic – Contemporary Performing Arts Center, had the pleasure of organizing an exceptional concert bringing together Fred Moten and Brandon López.
A poet, cultural theorist, author, and professor at New York University, Fred Moten is one of the most influential and radical voices in contemporary Black studies. Through a long-term body of work spanning writing, critical thought, and, more recently, musical performance, he shapes new conceptual forms of Black cultural production, aesthetics, and social life.
During a week-long residency at La Becque, Moten presented a rare performance at Arsenic alongside double bassist Brandon López, a leading figure in New York’s jazz and improvisation scenes. Their musical dialogue—at once subtle and visceral—offered the audience a moment of deep listening, in which voice, text, and bass intertwined in a shared exploration of the possibilities of sound and language.
The duo released Revision in 2025 (TAO Forms), their first album together, following two acclaimed trio recordings with drummer Gerald Cleaver. Their performance in Lausanne extended this trajectory, unfolding as a free, physical, and spiritual investigation of rhythm, breath, and poetic fragments that animate their collaboration.
Fred Moten & Brandon López, Arsenic, Lausanne, 2025, photo Alizée Quinche