"Sakina Abdou: Saxophones, recorder

Born in 1984 in Lille, where she currently lives, Sakina Abdou is a saxophonist, flautist and plastic artist. She studied the flute (early and contemporary music) and the saxophone (classical/contemporary/jazz) at the Music Academy of Lille and Roubaix. She graduated from the Fine Arts School of Tourcoing and Valenciennes (DNAP,DNSEP) and also has a State Diploma of Music Teacher.

Since 1998, she has been a member of various music bands in Lille's area. In parallel to her studies, she has explored free improvisation, experimental and contemporary music within various entities :

"La Pieuvre" orchestra, led by Olivier Benoit, part of the collective of musicians " Muzzix " ("Feldspath", Circum-disc, 2013), the band "Vazytouille", part of the collective of musicians " Zoone Libre " ("Vazytouille", Circum-disc, 2011), "Le Miroir et le marteau" led by rock drummer Guigou Chenevier ("Le Miroir et le Marteau, Inouï Productions, 2012), the FreeRock quintet "Eliogabal" ("Mo", Becoq, 2014) or the Toc Compulsive Brass band ("Air Bump", Circum-Disc, 2016).

Since 2014, she has collaborated with the Dedalus ensemble to reinterpret the work of american minimalist composers like Philip Glass or Moondog ("Round The World of Sound", New World Records, 2016) and has also played with "Organik Orkeztra" led by the pianist Jeremy Ternoy from Lille and the Basque singer Kristof Hiriart ("Beraz", LagunArte Productions, 2018).

In 2012, she co-founded "Bi-Ki?", a duet with fellow saxophonist Jean-Baptiste Rubin. With a wish to explore acoustic as well as amplified sounds, they teamed up with Jean Luc Guionnet to record their first album ("Quelque chose au milieu", LX/Becoq, 2016). They also collaborate with Simon Henocq during residencies where their work culminates in restitutions that are part live concert, part sound installation, part art performance.

Crossing over many styles, she is currently a member of the improvisation trio "Abdou Dang Orins" and Julien Tortora's sextet "Phuisis" ( whose creations revolve around French philosopher Charles Fourrier's work). She also took part in film screenings with live music, with Jean-Baptiste Rubin ("Le Bonheur") and Ivan Cruz ("Ciné-concert de papier"). She is also involved in other orchestral projects such as "le Grand Orchestre de Muzzix", "Ritual" with Organik Orkeztra, the "Red Desert Orchestra" led by Eve Risser, and "Hoquetus" (Dedalus/ Muzzix). Her musical activity has led her to collaborate with many artists including Satoko Fujii, Raymond Boni, Michael Pisaro, Anthony Pateras, Tom Johnson,..."

"Pianist Marta Warelis (1986) is a vibrant performer with a strong preference for improvisation and experimentation in all genres. She continually aims for instant composing on the basis of new sounds and influences. Her work draws inspiration from music across the globe including cumbia, Angolan dance music, as well as jazz, western classical music and the various schools of free improvisation. Born and raised in Poland where she graduated with honours from WSJiMR in Wroclaw, Marta moved to Groningen in 2010 to attend the Prins Claus Conservatory. In 2014 she found her place in Amsterdam, very quickly becoming an active member of the local improvisers' scene. Marta has appeared frequently in the Bimhuis, where in 2017 she was given a Carte Blanche in recognition of her remarkable talents. She performs with a variety of creative musicians including Michael Moore, Ab Baars, Mike Reed, Andy Moor, Joost Buis, dancers Lily Kiara and Michael Shumacher, as well with such groups as Hupata!, Omawi, Future Neighbor, Polyband, Edge Ensemble, Strings5, Xavier Pamplona, Warelis/Rosaly/Lumley/Dikeman and Bazooka."

Toma Gouband plays percussions with singing stones, foliage, drums, pin apple, and develops rythms based on proportions, crossing speeds, colors.

"One doesn't even need to 'enter' into the music of Toma Gouband: our ears (and eyes, if we have the pleasure of seeing him at work) are invited, by the spectacular and extraordinary organisation of colors and timbres that make up his dreaming inventive universe. Pieces of flint, natural skins covering a horizontal bass drum, which has scattered upon it tiny bells or blocks of wood, branches and twigs... pebbles rolled on the ground, inverted cymbals collcting thus all sorts of natural resonators... The high-hat cymbals have been replaced by...they've also been replaced by stones! Animated by an interior pulsation made from the superimposition of mysterious cycles, like so many clocks telling life's time in polyrythms that collide and cross over each other, the music of Toma Gouband transcends the idea of an imaginary territory, for it invites us to approach it as we would a social rite or even a ceremony of love. A weaving of the tissues of sound, with wisdom, sio that we feel them as universal, as though they come or to become, for which the visual metaphor could be those traditionel Kuba cloths from Upper Zaire that made of fabrics sewn one on top of the other, to which are added motifs according to an organisation that is rigorous but seems to be governed by rules that have been transmitted only to the initiates who create them. Thus, this is a music initited by the history of the world, unique, free of the constrains imposed by convention and which responds only to its own interior strenght: a summit of the musical art."-Benoît Delbecq