"Garth Knox was born in Ireland and grew up in Scotland. Being the youngest of four children who all played string instruments, he was encouraged to take up the viola, and he quickly decided to make this his career. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Fredrick Riddle, where he won several prizes for viola and for chamber music. Thereafter he played with most of the leading groups in London in a mixture of all repertoires, from baroque to contemporary music.

In 1983 he was invited by Pierre Boulez to become a member of the Ensemble Intercontemporain in Paris, where he had the chance to do much solo playing (including concertos directed by Pierre Boulez) and chamber music, touring widely and playing in international festivals.

In 1990 Garth Knox joined the Arditti String Quartet, playing in all the major concert halls of the world, working closely with and giving first performances of pieces by most of today's leading composers including Ligeti, Kurtag, Berio, Xenakis, Lachenmann, Cage, Feldman and Stockhausen (the famous "Helicopter Quartet").

Since leaving the quartet in 1998, Garth Knox has given premieres by Henze (the Viola Sonata is dedicated to him), Ligeti, Schnittke, Ferneyhough, James Dillon, George Benjamin and many others. He also collaborates regularly in theatre and dance projects and has written and performed shows for children and young audiences. Improvisation is also an important part of his musical activity, and he has performed with George Lewis, Steve Lacy, Joel LŽandre, Dominique PifarŽly, Bruno Chevillon, Benat Achiary, Scanner and many others. He appears on the Frode Haltli CD Passing Images. In the past decade he has begun to write his own music, and is much in demand for theatre, dance and film scores as well as concert pieces and instrumental works.

Garth Knox has recently begun to explore the possibilities of the viola d'Õamore in new music, with and without electronics, and is in the process of creating a new repertoire for this instrument. His CD D'Amore (EMI New Series 1925) features old and new music for the viola d'amore.

Garth Knox now lives in Paris playing recitals, concertos and chamber music concerts all over Europe, the USA and Japan. His solo CD with works from Ligeti, Dusapin, Berio, Kurt‡g and others (MO 782082) won the coveted Deutsche Schallplaten Preis in Germany."

"Sylvain Lemêtre, percussion

The itinerary of the eclectic percussionist Sylvain Lemêtre takes shape around his openness and his insatiable curiosity towards explorations and musical encounters. His favorite field is the confines of contemporary creation, jazz, improvisation and traditional music.

He trained at the conservatory at a young age, winning a first prize in percussion and chamber music at G.Sylvestre in Rueil-Malmaison and a first prize in traditional percussion at C.Nicolas in Argenteuil. In addition, he has always worked and played Zarb with F.Bedel, trained in soundpainting with V.Le Quang and practiced piano with C.Stephan. Nourished by the teachings of his masters, he likes to describe himself as "a self-taught conservatoire", defending a non-academic musical path, favoring listening, autonomy, analytical and critical sense, both towards the learned written music. and traditional and improvised oral music.

The question of theatricality in music and the presence of musicians on stage is very important to him when he approaches musical theater. Thus, today he is passionately involved in training courses with extremely varied aesthetics:

"The subtraction of flowers" by Jean-François Vrod, "The Cairn Ensemble" directed by Jérôme Combier, "Surnatural Orchestra", "Léger Sourire" musical theater duet, "Spring Roll" and "Printemps" by Sylvaine Hélary, " Saltarello "by Garth Knox," Farewell my beautiful "by Matthieu Donarier. "Boreal Sound" his solo around texts by Olivier Mellano, "The steam over rice" Alexandra Grimal.

He played in Antonin Leymarie's "Magnetic Ensemble", "Real thing # 3" and "Tower-Bridge" by Marc Ducret, "The Riddle of the Tympanum" by Fred Pallem for several years and now has a beautiful discography.

More recently, he began writing music and honored commissions, notably the state commission: "Borg and Théa" for the Béla quartet, the subtraction of flowers and the mastery of the Opéra de Lyon, but also "Entre cabbage and wolf "and" The angel of the weird "for Noémi Boutin and S.Hélary, or" The energy of the ceiling "for Surnatural Orchestra Albert Marcoeur and the Béla quartet.

In addition, throughout his career during the creation of live shows and concerts, he collaborated with the artists: T.Bonvalet, K.Davis, E.Caron, J.Pontier, D.Chouillet, C.Palotaï, P .Minton, Nosfell, Matthieu A, JP.Drouet, F.Sarhan, T.Blondeau, G.Pesson, R.Cendo, F.Marillier, N.Frize, A.Messager, R.Thierry, B.Coupey, C. Pavet, F.Cotinaud, P.Cueco, V.Bouchot. MH. Fournier, G.Siracusa, Y.Maresz, L.Naon, L.Fagin, A.Serre-Milan, E.Biston, A.Martinez. "

"John Zorn (born September 2, 1953) is an American composer, arranger, producer, saxophonist, and multi-instrumentalist with hundreds of album credits as performer, composer, and producer across a variety of genres including jazz, rock, hardcore, classical, surf, metal, klezmer, soundtrack, ambient, and improvised music. He incorporates diverse styles in his compositions which he identifies as avant-garde or experimental. Zorn was described by Down Beat as "one of our most important composers".

Zorn established himself within the New York City downtown music movement in the mid-1970s performing with musicians across the sonic spectrum and developing experimental methods of composing new music. After releasing albums on several independent US and European labels, Zorn signed with Elektra Nonesuch and received wide acclaim with the release of The Big Gundown, an album reworking the compositions of Ennio Morricone. He attracted further attention worldwide with the release of Spillane in 1987, and Naked City in 1989. After spending almost a decade travelling between Japan and the US he made New York his permanent base and established his own record label, Tzadik, in the mid-1990s.

Tzadik enabled Zorn to maintain independence from the mainstream music industry and ensured the continued availability of his growing catalog of recordings, allowing him to prolifically record and release new material, issuing several new albums each year, as well as promoting the work of many other musicians. Zorn has led the hardcore bands Naked City and Painkiller, the klezmer/free jazz-influenced quartet Masada, composed over 600 pieces as part of the Masada Songbooks that have been performed by an array of groups, composed concert music for classical ensembles and orchestras, and produced music for opera, sound installations, film and documentary. Zorn has undertaken many tours of Europe, Asia, and the Middle East, often performing at festivals with many other musicians and ensembles that perform his diverse output.

Zorn's compositions cross many genres and he has stated "All the various styles are organically connected to one another. I'm an additive person-the entire storehouse of my knowledge informs everything I do. People are so obsessed with the surface that they can't see the connections, but they are there." For Zorn "Composing is more than just imagining music-it's knowing how to communicate it to musicians. And you don't give an improviser music that's completely written out, or ask a classical musician to improvise. I'm interested in speaking to musicians in their own languages, on their own terms, and in bringing out the best in what they do. To challenge them and excite them." "