For some, like Timothy Brock, childhood dreams do become true: «Since I was ten, I never stopped telling my mother that when I grew up, I wanted to write music for silent films», he writes. The American composer and conductor found his vocation and his niche early indeed and for the past thirty years, he has established himself as the keeper of a very particular moment in music history: early 20th-century soundtracks. A fragile heritage in need of care, restoration and, sometimes, re-creation – which provides countless opportunities to work across musical genres. As part of his 14-year-long mission for the Chaplin family estate between 1998 and 2012, Brock notably reconstructed Charlie Chaplin’s original score for Modern Times (1936) – an explosive blend of orchestral music, jazz and music hall tunes. He also connected with Dmitri Shostakovich’s ghost when rescuing New Babylon, a 1929 Soviet drama set during the Paris Commune and which rather classical soundtrack freely quotes the Marseillaise and Offenbach’s famously infamous Can-Can… When he is not collaborating with composers beyond the grave, Timothy Brock writes and conducts himself. Back in January, the Philharmonie celebrated the 20th anniversary of his original score for Ernst Lubitsch’s 1925 Lady Windermere’s Fan – a project which Mr. Brock retrospectively analyses as «an opportunity to expose [his] first love and deepest roots», namely classical orchestral music. A year prior, he had drawn from the American folk tradition to accompany Buster Keaton’s The General while for Foolish Wives, he «utilized a handful of short incidental piano pieces by the rather obscure Russian composer, Sergei Lyuapinov (1859-1924)».

In Mr Brock’s own words, the secret to his capacity to welcome and navigate such radically different musical ideas is simply silence, that is, interacting with filmed material without added noises, effects or other interferences. «I have also written some soundtracks for modern films», he adds in a blog post, «but I am much more comfortable in silent film: there I can really create with more freedom and construct a coherent discourse without having to take into account too many factors external to the music». A synesthetic mind at heart, Timothy Brock creates by responding to the images unfolding on the screen – which makes him not just a builder of bridges between past and present or, as described above, between various musical traditions, but also between two artforms: music and visual art.

Debuting at the Philharmonie in 2026, the French-Syrian flautist Naïssam Jalal was initially trained in the Western tradition before going on to study oriental music in Damascus, Cairo and Beirut. «I am influenced by many musical languages», she tells What The France in 2021. She signalled her taste for crossover projects early in her career. Created with her band Rhythms of Resistance and released in 2015/16, her first two albums already presented a distinctive blend of Middle Eastern and contemporary jazz influences. She went on to have ad-hoc brushes with more «urban» artforms such as hip-hop and rap, and even returned to classical music for the project Un Autre Monde, which led her to compose for a symphony orchestra for the first time.

This appetite for various musical idioms and genres should be understood as a reflection, or rather, a consequence of Jalal’s cross-cultural sensibility – which interestingly extends well beyond her dual cultural heritage. In 2024, she travelled to India – a country and culture with which she has no personal, direct ties – where she familiarised herself with traditional Indian instruments and collaborated with local musicians. The project Landscapes of Eternity which she brings to the Philharmonie in 2026 is the result of this immersive encounter. She also cites Mandigue and West African music as powerful influences – which comes as no surprise, considering that she toured Mali at the age of 17, freshly out of the yoke of the Paris Conservatoire. For Naïssam Jalal, travelling is not so much about observing, consuming or even collecting experiences and ideas: it is about welcoming a new culture into the heart of her identity and letting herself be shaped by it as an artist.

For all her cultural and geographical explorations, Jalal remains however strikingly consistent in terms of style. The very source of her musical practice, her instrument is also the unifying factor behind her many projects, providing a distinctive sound identity and allowing her to craft a recognisably acoustic and contemplative voice which can be found in all she undertakes. Her latest album, Souffles (2025), pays a heartfelt tribute to the flute and to the unique ways in which she has trained herself to merge her voice with it, so that the instrument becomes a virtual extension of her intimate self. «My music is my driving force», she told Los Angeles’ Markaz Review in 2023, «what keeps me on my feet and allows me to move forward, to dream, to desire […] My music lets me say what I cannot express in words».