To Alan Turing

Hélène Moulin

To Alan Turing · 2025

Some lives leave a legacy that history celebrates, while overlooking the personal suffering behind the achievements. With To Alan Turing, French artist Hélène Moulin turns her attention to the life of the renowned British scientist, exploring the loneliness and persecution that marked his final years. The result is a melancholic ballad that approaches its subject with restraint, sensitivity and a deep sense of reflection. The track is the third instalment of Tombeau d'Alan Turing, an audiovisual tribute dedicated to the mathematician. Composed, recorded and mixed by Moulin in 2022, the project examines the difficult circumstances surrounding Turing's life. Despite his extraordinary contribution to science and the Allied war effort during the Second World War, he faced discrimination because of his homosexuality, which was criminalised in Britain during his lifetime. His tragic death in 1954 remains a painful part of his story. Musically, To Alan Turing takes a deliberately understated approach. Its gentle instrumentation creates a calm and restrained backdrop, while the steady rhythm gives the ballad an almost relentless quality. Against this setting, Moulin's voice carries the emotional weight of the composition, expressing a quiet but deeply felt response to Turing's isolation and suffering. Moulin brings considerable musical experience to the project. After an intensive musical education, she began studying opera singing at the age of seventeen and made her stage debut at Rennes Opera the following year. She subsequently spent 25 years performing as an opera singer on national and international stages before gradually moving towards composition and sound mixing. This change allowed her to take greater control of her creative process, composing, performing, recording and mixing her own work. Her artistic interests extend across different musical traditions, including early music and pop, with an openness to exploring the connections between styles. Through To Alan Turing, Hélène Moulin gives musical form to a story of extraordinary achievement overshadowed by injustice and loneliness. Rather than relying on grand gestures, the composition finds its strength in its simplicity, offering a thoughtful tribute to a remarkable figure whose personal struggles deserve to remain part of his legacy.