"Frédéric Blondy Born in Bordeaux in 1973.

On completing his studies in Mathematics and Physics at Bordeaux University, Frédéric Blondy dedicated himself full time to music, firstly as a jazz pianist and subsequently as a student at the Bordeaux National Conservatory where he studed piano, harmony, analysis and composition. Since moving to Paris he has worked with Marie-Christine Calvet at the "International Piano Center", refining a body-based approach to the instrument.

As musician, Frédéric Blondy has performed in many festivals and venues in Europe, North America, Middle East and Asia, working with, amongst others Paul Lovens, Rhodri Davies, Lê Quan Ninh, Michel Doneda, Joëlle Léandre, Urs Leimgruber, Thomas Lehn, Daunik Lazro, Radu Malfatti, John Tilbury, Otomo Yoshihide, Mats Gustafsson,.... and developed a thorough work with ensembles like Hubbub, Ethos.

As composer, he wrote music for films, videos, and danse and works with several ensembles.

In 2011 he created the Orchestre de Nouvelles Créations, Expérimentations et Improvisations Musicales (ONCEIM - ensemble of 30 musicians) to develop links between improvisers skills and written music. He is actually artistic director and composer for this ensemble.

He runs for several years a regular workshops on improvisation and contemporary sound practices, first at the Instants Chavirés then as part of the Rendez-Vous Contemporains of Saint Merry.He is a regular speaker at the Cité de la Musique in Paris for workshops on contemporary sound practices and new creation tools.

More occasionally he is requested in many festivals in Europe, North America and Japan to lead courses and presenting lectures aboutimprovisation and contemporary sound practices.

He has made almost twenty recordings published on different European labels. He is a regular guest on national radio for concerts or to participate in broadcasts. His concerts are regularly recorded and broadcast by national radios : France Musique, SWR, BBC,...

He is also involved in the promotion of improvised and contemporary music as well as visual arts through Rendez-Vous Contemporains of Saint Merry and the festival Crak in Paris inviting international artists for concerts, performances, screenings, meetings..."

-Frederic Blondy Website (https://www.fredericblondy.net/bio.html)
9/18/2024

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"Bertrand Denzler is a tenor saxophone player. He has played in Europe and Latin America both as a solo act and with musicians such as Xavier Charles, Peter Frils Nielsen, Jean-Luc Guionnet, Barry Guy, Ninh Lê Quan, Urs Leimgruber, Günter Müller, Bob Ostertag, Norbert Pfammatter, Hasse Poulsen, Mark Sanders, Mathieu Werchowski, and Otomo Yoshihide. He is a member of the groups Hubbub, Nanocluster, Laps, Denzler-Mariage, A3/1, and Chamaeleo Vulgaris. He has put out a number of compact discs on various labels."-ActuelleCD.com (http://www.actuellecd.com/en/bio/denzler_be/)
9/18/2024

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"Jean-Luc Guionnet is an elusive figure. A Parisian artist active in many fields (music, visual arts, cinema), he has mostly worked in electro-acoustics but also has a career in free improvisation, playing alto saxophone, soprano saxophone, church organ, and piano. He has collaborated with Éric La Casa, Éric Cordier, and André Almuro on tape music. His main free improv and jazz projects include Hubbub, Schams, Return of the New Thing, and the Joe Rosenberg quintet.

Guionnet made scientific studies before shifting to fine arts. He studied musique concrete under Iannis Xenakis and Michel Zbar, but also pursued studies in philosophy (esthetics) with Geneviève Clancy. His first works date from the late '80s and are mostly collaborations with filmmaker André Almuro (some have been issued by Ground Fault). Then came a lasting partnership with electro-acousticians Éric Cordier and Éric La Casa. Together they wrote the series "Afflux." Guionnet also produces the Ateliers de Création Radiophoniques ("creative radio workshops") for France Culture. His eclecticism has kept him at bay of recognition -- because to the eye of the press it strips him from some credibility and because running careers in philosophy (he was co-director for the review Terre des Signes from 1993 to 1996), painting (he exhibited from 1992 to 1997), and music simultaneously tends to be time-consuming.

The release of an eponymous CD by Dan Warburton's free jazz quartet Return of the New Thing in 1999 on the respected label Leo Records introduced Guionnet to a wider audience. Since then his activities as an improviser have constantly stretched toward the fringes of experimentalism. His participation in the French-Swiss group Hubbub and his duo with guitarist Olivier Benoit (&Un, 2002) follow the school of Berlin reductionism."

-All Music, François Couture (http://www.allmusic.com/artist/jean-luc-guionnet-mn0000231714)
9/18/2024

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"Born in Paris in 1973 and raised in the middle class suburbs, it's on the clotheslines at the end of the garden that Jean-Sébastien Mariage gets introduced to the guitar, well before the transmutation of his BEPC in black Stratocaster, changed very quickly for the Gibson Les Paul he has not dropped since. At 17 and up to 23, he follows the improvisation workshops of the one he still considers today as his music master, Patricio Villarroel. From his brief stint at the Sorbonne, a musicology course, he will remember little more than having heard, during the acoustics lessons, recordings of songs by Amazonian Indians or Vatican bells : it is that at the same time, true musical adventure began - first professional experience at age 19 with a dance company, then meeting at 20's Frederick Galiay, bassist with whom he founded Chamæleo Vulgaris, and first concerts under the aegis of Instants Chavirés. He goes on concerts, then thinks it would be good for him to enter the concervatory (sic), since that's where you learn to play concerts : he studied classical guitar for six years , until the national contest in 2000. There followed a good twenty recordings and hundreds of concerts, solo or in various formations, stamped free improvisation, free rock, even free jazz or noise, with the greatest achievements of French and international improvisers - not to mention collaborations with dance (Karol Armitage or Yukiko Nakamura), theater, poetry and visual arts, but also with composers such as Rhys Chattam, Elianne Radigue, Stephen O'Malley, Frederick Galiay, Peter Ablinger.... In short, a journey is, according to, purist or monomaniac : there has never been, there is, and there will never, probably, that the guitar, he can only do that, but knows how to do everything with it - especially what he is the only one who can do, of course. To know : calmly, with authority, to emerge from the chaos a matter, whatever it is to accept it, to welcome it even, then conscientiously to work it, to polish it... but always to the maximum, and then to a blow of one make him make throat. Leave the earth. Tear the time."

-Inversus Doxa (http://www.inversus-doxa.fr/Biography?lang=fr)
9/18/2024

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