Pascal Dusapin is a French intellectual – he cites the philosopher Gilles Deleuze as a particular inspiration – whose generation (he was born just a few months before Michel Houellebecq) are now to the fore following the death of Pierre Boulez. A student of Xenakis in Paris, he sometimes gives the titles of his works a linguistic quirkiness, as in for example, Ici, Iti, Incisa and Indeed. His comment on Outscape, his second cello concerto, that ‘it's difficult for me to explain my work because the substance of thought is confused with the flow of music’ is – given his musical pedigree and cultural milieu – unsurprising.