For the 2025–2026 season, Léo Collin serves as curator of Ensemble Tzara (Zurich). In 2025, he created Plankton, a music-theater work for 12 musicians and 4 performers, developed with Kapitolina Tsvetkova and Collegium Novum Zürich. In the same year, he also composed the music for Francesca Sproccati’s new stage work Venire Meno.
In summer 2024, Collin staged Hyper Duo ( Gilles Grimaitre and Julien Mégroz) on Hyper Heimat and created Blind Test, a site-specific audio performance for the Rümlingen Festival (Switzerland).
In 2023, supported by the Christoph Delz Werkjahr grant, he began an extensive research project in sound field recording, traveling through Brazil, Mexico, the United States, and South Africa to document themes related to death and remembrance. During this period he also co-produced and performed as a guitarist in Charles Quevillon’s Electronic Unconscious.
Also in 2023 and 2024, Collin adapted his music-theater works Baleen, Medusen, and Corals for site-specific performances in Thurgau (Switzerland) within the thematic framework “Stadt Land See.” Baleen was also presented at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, and he conducted research in Japan for Das geklaute Gehör.
In 2021, he received the Werkjahr Prize from the City of Zurich and became a curator for IGNM Zürich, programming several concerts each season. That same year he presented Medusen, the second part of a cycle of music-theater works that would later culminate with Corals in 2023.
After completing his studies, Collin worked as an assistant to the artist Jörg Köppl and created several audio performances, including Mono, Motor Mutter, Der Pilz im Patent, and Das geklaute Gehör. He also composed music for director Marco Milling at Schauspielhaus Zürich and Deutsches Theater Berlin. In 2019, he staged and performed Peter Eötvös’s Atlantis with his trio Kollektiv international totem, which received the Nicati Open Space Award. That same year he premiered Baleen, his first music-theater project, at Gessnerallee Zurich.
In 2018, Collin undertook a three-month residency in Hong Kong, followed by a mini-tour in Australia and New Zealand.
During his studies in Zurich, he developed important artistic collaborations with Kay Zhang, Nuriia Khasenova, Leandro Gianini, Dalius Singer, Mariana Grünig, and Simon Dieterdorfer, with whom he developed several composer-theater projects. During this time he also became active as a performer (piano, percussion, and voice).
Collin moved to Zurich in 2015 to pursue a master’s degree in composition with Isabel Mundry and German Toro-Perez.
Before that, he spent a year as an exchange student in Freiburg im Breisgau (Germany), where he studied with Brice Pauset and participated in projects such as Groove Space at the Freiburg Opera, directed by Sebastian Matthias. During this period he also took part in numerous workshops, academies, and composition competitions across Europe. His works have been performed by ensembles including Les Métaboles, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Soundinitiative (Paris), Lemanic Modern Ensemble (Basel), Lucilin (Luxembourg), Avanti! Chamber Orchestra (Helsinki), Batida and Eklekto (Geneva), Les Voix Animées (Toulon), Musicatreize (Marseille), Öx&Öl (Zurich), and Inverspace (Mannheim). He has also composed electronic music for theater and dance, notably for Alessandro Sciarroni at IRCAM (Paris) and Le Centquatre.
In Geneva, Collin completed his bachelor’s degree, studying composition with Michael Jarrell and Luis Naón. In 2015, he performed Michael Jarrell’s monodrama Siegfried at the Comédie de Genève, as well as Blaise Ubaldini’s 4.48 Psychosis, experiences that deepened his interest in the performative dimensions of music. Before his studies in Switzerland, he attended conservatories in Lyon and Annecy, where he studied piano, viola, contemporary composition, and film music.
Initially torn between visual arts and music, he ultimately chose to pursue European classical music, after attending an applied arts high school in Besançon and Marseille.
Léo Collin is born in 1990 in France and grew up in a small village in the Jura region.
IN
STATEMENT
Léo’s practice intertwines contemporary music, spoken forms, and multimedia elements—text, video, sound, and stage—to distort mainstream European and North American culture and respond to ecological and existential crises. He composes immersive pieces for non-human entities such as animals, plants, and ghosts, blending their sounds with objects, machines, and flawed technologies to foster a deeper connection with the living and non-living world.
His work embodies decolonial, de-polemical, and non-competitive ideals, reflecting a nuanced relationship with instruments and materials while challenging human-centered perspectives and embracing the beauty of imperfection. Through this, Léo reimagines coexistence amid collapse, offering a haunting yet hopeful response to biodiversity loss and cultural disintegration.
Léo’s practice intertwines contemporary music, spoken forms, and multimedia elements—text, video, sound, and stage—to distort mainstream European and North American culture and respond to ecological and existential crises. He composes immersive pieces for non-human entities such as animals, plants, and ghosts, blending their sounds with objects, machines, and flawed technologies to foster a deeper connection with the living and non-living world.
His work embodies decolonial, de-polemical, and non-competitive ideals, reflecting a nuanced relationship with instruments and materials while challenging human-centered perspectives and embracing the beauty of imperfection. Through this, Léo reimagines coexistence amid collapse, offering a haunting yet hopeful response to biodiversity loss and cultural disintegration.
