16th march 2026 – Some news

I have some news and I am happy to share it with you.

As François and I had planned, the CD QUI EST FOU ? was released by MUSEA in March 2025. In addition to other glowing and favourable reviews, QUI EST FOU ? was included in the selection: Les albums préférés du « Monde » en 2025 (Le Monde‘s Favourite Albums in 2025).

Le Monde

I am particularly moved because this CD bears witness to the work of our Ribac-Schwabe Company at the beginning of the new millennium. The opera QUI EST FOU premiered in January 2002 at Opera de Reims and at the Scène Nationale Le Moulin du Roc in Niort.

Bandcamp

Today and in the future, I will continue what we wanted to do in the future: to record and publish the music from our shows.

The next album will mainly feature songs from La mélodie de l’ombre.

La mélodie de l’ombre – a film concert – was premiered in 2008 at the Forum des Images in Paris.

The CD is scheduled for release in early 2027.

Music for television

François had been writing music for images since the 1980s. I have posted some of the television films on a YouTube channel.

Youtube

WIKI

There is now also a WIKI page dedicated to François (in french)

Wikipedia

take care

Eva

François Ribac 16-03-1961 – 06-11-2024

It is with immense sadness that I write these lines. François passed away on 6 November 2024 at the age of 63. At the same time, I am infinitely grateful and happy for the 34 years we lived together, for his endless love, for the work we did together in music and theatre, for his artistic strength and for his deeply feminist attitude

François was able to finish and publish his latest book online: Arts de la Scène et Musique dans l’Anthropocène.

At the same time, we have posted the digital version of our new CD on BandcampQUI EST FOU ? Which will soon be available on all streaming platforms and on CD.

François had found many interests and many means of expression. He was a rock and jazz bassist and guitarist, a composer of stage music and music for film.

In 1995, we founded a theater company together, and since then, created 7 operas, 1 Cine-Concert, and 3 major hybrid projects. Over the past ten years, François had also become interested in working with mixed groups of professional and amateur artists.

For example, “Tout un monde de Strat(e)s”—created in 2013 in La Rochelle—was a tribute to George Harrison with 70 musicians on stage.

For example, in 2019, “Le Grand Orchestre de la Transition”. A project in which different groups of amateurs, accompanied by professional artists, imagined the city of Dijon in 2039, 20 years after climate change.

Since the late 1990s, François wanted to delve deeper into the themes that mattered to him as a composer through university study. In 2008, he wrote a doctoral thesis in sociology, focusing on the scientific and technical genealogy of recording studios. Since 2012, he had also worked in academic and institutional settings: the University of Dijon and IRCAM, conducting diverse research related to music in the Anthropocene. This research resulted in a wide range of publications, from “La Valeur du Rock” in 2004 to “Arts de la Scène et Musique dans l’Anthropocène” in 2024.

He would very gladly have continued his reflection on “the ways in which stage and musical vocabularies can (or cannot) create spaces where all—amateurs as well as professionals—can imagine other possible worlds and contribute to their existence.”

But he had to leave us far too soon.

He is deeply missed.

Eva Schwabe

A big thank you to all those who came in such large numbers to the event in tribute to François Ribac on November 30, 2024 in Paris. Speeches that were given and videos that were showed have been compiled here: Hommage à François

https://ribac-and-schwabe.bandcamp.com/album/qui-est-fou

In 2001, Cathal joined us to rehearse and perform the opera Qui est Fou ? in 2002 and 2003. It was our first collaboration. Over the next few years, we worked together on three other theatrical productions and two CDs. The second album (Qui est Fou) can now be heard on our bandcamp page. Cathal sings on five tracks. In the coming weeks, the album will be available on all streaming platforms and on CD.

Photos of the show here:

Qui est fou ? (2002)

François Ribac and Eva Schwabe

Cathal Coughlan (16th december 1960- 18th may 2022)

Cathal Coughlan

Some months ago, the Musée d’Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg asked François if he would like to comment on one or more of the works in the exhibition Histoires naturelles (21 January – 31 December 2022). After discussion with the curator, François chose to propose something for works by Maria Sybilla Merian (1647 – 1717) an artist and naturalist who documented the life of plants and insects in the Americas. After some exchanges, it was decided that visitors to the exhibition would hear the song “The Life and Death of a Plant Hunter” as they approached Merian’s works. This song, written by Martin Newell, was sung by (for) Cathal Coughlan in our opera Petit Traité Pop du Jardin Botanique (2004-2006) and is included in the album Into the Green (2017). The text tells the story of a botanist bringing back countless species of plants and flowers from distant lands. At the end of the song, we understand that the plant hunter is dead but that all the species brought back will preserve his memory forever.

A few days after we decided to use this song, our friend, the great songwriter and singer Cathal Coughlan died. Cathal was a rare person, funny, concerned about the state of the world, a true friend and a great artist. He delighted the teams and audiences of three of our operas and an orchestral project. We loved him and remember the years we spent together on stage, backstage and in the recording studio, but also in restaurants, travelling on tour, listening to music and browsing in record shops, exchanging CDs and books, meeting and saying “goodbye” in railway stations and airports, sending greeting cards and emails. Cathal was a wonderful hunter of stories and melodies, a voice with an incredible intensity. His solo records, with Microdisney and Fatima Mansions and recently Telefis, the many traces of his concerts and the documentary The Adventures of Flannery (Johnny Gogan/2008) will keep his memory alive.

 Eva et François, july of 2022