"If it's in Paris that Sophie Agnel was born in 1964, it is towards other sounding islands in the heart of a reinvented temporality that she dwells today, at the stern of a grand piano, an instrument that she turns into a real living & vibrating organism.

Classically trained, escaped from jazz (drawn away by the too strict treatment of harmony), Sophie Agnel boards the piano from every sonic angle this musical vessel can offer : keys, strings & board are simultaneously apprehended, in a mixed procedure (as we say of painting techniques) that would be understated if it was reduced to the cagian definition of the prepared piano. Considering the instrument - that she extends with several accessories, paper cups, balls or strings - as a poetic supplier of anamorphic textures, the musician takes it to be an equal match to the wider diversity of musical systems, whatever the craft they where conceived in (from physiological to electro-acoustic) ...

We would then no longer be surprised to notice her understandings with Michel Doneda and to find her to the side of the wet saxophone of Alessandro Bosetti, of the acoustified electric guitar of Olivier Benoit, of the voices of Catherine Jauniaux and Phil Minton, or the keyboard of Christine Wodraska...

The same seal of esthetic evidence marks all of her musical companionships, with this same taste, beyond the narrative, for the delicate sonic quests and blossoming of dimensions to which the auditor takes part through an active listening : in the heart of Jean Pallandre's phonographic worlds, of Jerôme Noetinger & Lionel Marchetti's small scale cinema, John Butcher or Axel Dörner's crimpy tissues, by the lovely machines of Erik M or Ikue Mori, the harmonico-stratospheric rustling of Stéphane Rives...

The originality of the research conducted by Sophie Agnel today leads her to develop, in solo or with significantly chosen companions, a most refined and highly poetic approach to sound that makes each of her concerts a moving construction filled with chiseled musical gestures, a soft and sumptuous irradiation."-Guillaume Tarche

-Sophie Agnel Website (http://sophieagnel.free.fr/biographie.html)
10/27/2025

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"Sound artist, improviser, composer Pascal Battus develops a practice of sound more attentive to the sound gesture, the listening and the situation which determines them than to a defined instrument: the pickup of guitar (guitar pickup without guitar) , rotating surfaces, the guitar "environnée" (electric guitar on table + micro contact + various objects + electronics), percussion (objects amplified or not), ... His work is regularly broadcast on international airwaves (France Musique, Resonance FM, ...) He has played in Europe, United States of America, Canada, Asia, Middle East, Australia, ... solo or more frequently with other musicians. he often works with dancers, visual artists (video, light, sculpture, ...). He creates Graphones (sound drawings) and co-invents Massages Sonores. His records are published by Potlatch, Corpus Hermeticum, Amor Fati, Another Stamp, Cathnor, Organized Music From Thessaloniki, Herbal International ..."

-Pascal Battus Website (Translated by Google) (http://pbattus.free.fr/bio.php)
10/27/2025

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French singer, accordionist, composer and conductor who works in improvised, experimental and contemporary music. She performs with voice and/or accordion internationally, collaborates with many improvisers (e.g., Jean-Luc Guionnet) and founded the company Hors Laps in 2011, exploring the voice/accordion in relation to sound and space.

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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Benjamin Bondonneau is a French artist involved with Jazz, Spoken Word, Classical and Electronic music. He was born in 1975 in Sarlat. He obtained a DNAP and DNSEP from the Fine Arts of Bordeaux where he attended from 1993 to 1998. He also is active as a painter, and teaches visual arts and musical improvisation to different audiences: amateurs, professionals, schools, music schools, conservatories. He is a member of Quatuor Cassini.

-Metason (https://music.metason.net/artistinfo?name=Benjamin%20Bondonneau)
10/27/2025

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"David Chiesa: Doublebass, Electric bass.

With particular focus on improvisation since 1997, David explores the relation with other artistic practices such as dance (with Fine Kwiatkowski, Valérie Métivier, Véronique Albert, Yukiko Nakamura), poetry (with Ly Thanh Tiên) or experimental films ( with Xavier Quérel, Christophe Auger, Etienne Caire, Gaêlle Rouard)...

Due to his interest in reality as the subject-matter for play, he met a group of artists by the name of Ouie/Dire (Marc Pichelin, Jean Pallandre, Laurent Sassi, Xavier Charles, Isabelle Duthoit, Kristoff Guez) with whom he developed links between "musical" improvisation and phonography.

As an improviser, he has participated in numerous meetings and developed several long-term collaboration with musicians such as Jean Luc Guionnet, Frédéric Blondy, Michel Doneda, Isabelle Duthoit... He has played in Europe, the United States, Lebanon, Africa, Estonia, Japan... He is a co-founding member of Le Clou, a Dordogne-based association which seeks to review and disseminate improvisation practices."

-David Chiesa Website (http://david.chiesa.en.free.fr/David_Chiesa_En/Biography.html)
10/27/2025

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A self-taught visual and installation artist working with light, movement and sound. His practice uses electromechanical devices, shutters or reflective surfaces to provoke variations of rhythm, scansions of bright light in deep darkness, and to test our perception of time and space.

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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A French trombonist active in free jazz, heavy rock, improvised music and traditional music. He performs in several collectives and has developed his own creative structure called "pépète lumière".

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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"Michel Doneda (F) soprano saxophone, born in 1954, comes from the French South-West. He is a self-taught musician.

In 1980 he founded in Toulouse a reed trio: HIC ET NUNC, a group that toured quite a lot in France, playing mostly improvised music. At the same time he founded with musicians, dancers and actors a place called IREA (Institute for research and exchange between arts of improvisation).

In the following years, he participated in music projects with other artists and he became a regular guest of the Chantenay-Villedieu festival. Meeting other artists he developed a very personal approach with his music and his instrument in improvised music. During this period he played with Europeans musicians: Fred Van Hove, Phil Wachsmann, Max Eastley, Steve Beresford and Americans: John Zorn, Eliott Sharp, Elvin Jones

In 1985 he made his first record under his own name: TERRA (Nato record). At the same time he started playing regurlarly with Lê Quan Ninh, Daunik Lazro, Benat Achiary, Martine Altenburger, Barre Phillips, Paul Rogers, Tetsu Saitoh, Kazue Sawai. More recently he developed his work with Keith Rowe, Gunter Muller, Bhob Rainey, Giuseppe Ielasi and dancers as Masaki Iwana, Yukiko Nakamura, Valérie Métivier and poets, actors.

Since then, he has been very involved in the international improvised music scene, toured in Africa, Japan, Asia, USA, Canada, South America, Russia and with a lot of improvisers in Europe. In 1992 he founded in Toulouse with musicians, actors, poets, dancers the association: La Flibuste. As of today he recorded almost 50 records for European, Americans and Japanese labels."

-Timeart Ensemble Website (http://www.zeitkunst.eu/ta/)
10/27/2025

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"Camille Emaille is a French percussionist born in 1993 in Nice. She is studying at the Musik-Akademie of Basel (Switzerland) with Christian Dierstein on contemporary music and with Fred Frith on free improvisation. She considers music a part of everything, part of everyday life. That's why she began to improvise, to feel music more as a flux, as something which is already here, something that we (the musician and the audience) just jump into... She works with many artists from varying fields, such as video, muppet theatre, shadow theater with the show Divines Bovines and plays in the musical projects Oxke Fixu (duo with clarinet), Defibrillator (electronic, e-trombone, perc.) and Ratax (d-b., cl., perc.). She used to organize and play in " wild " events, happenings that took place in unusual locations such as closed tunnels, abandoned hospitals, highway bridges, old synagogues (festival Myosotis); events where people go without any knowledge of what will transpire...

She worked during workshops and master classes with Lee Quan Ninh, John Butcher, Benat Achiary, Roscoe Mitchel, Gunter Baby Sommer et Zina Parkins. She played with Fred Frith, Fritz Hauser and William Winant among others.

In fond of persian music, she studies tombak with Pedram Khavarzamini and tabla with Sankar Chowdhury as well as traditionnal music from midle est. With davul/tapan (turkish or bulgarian instrument) in Duna Orkestar (balkanic brass band) or tombak, daf and req with Koâni (trio with hurdy gurdy, harmonica and percussions) she played concerts in France, Switzerland, Germany and Turkey."

-Camille Emaille Website (https://camilleemaille.com/bio/)
10/27/2025

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French electric-guitar improviser and composer active since ~2015, mixing noise and guitar, and member of Le UN since 2019. Her approach uses minimal gear and extreme zoom-in on sound details (e.g., mic'ing one-inch zones on the guitar) and she also teaches experimental music.

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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French double bassist/improviser whose practice spans free improvisation and musics at the border of jazz, tradition and contemporary creation. She has been active in ensembles like Grand Chahut Collectif and Le UN and her playing emphasises body, interiority, rhythm and timbre.

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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"Bertrand Gauguet is a musician trudging through a practice without hierarchy involving sound and music: as an improvising saxophonist, electronic music composer and as a sounds collector.

He plays since the early 2000s the alto saxophone in contexts of solo and group improvisation. His approach takes part in research on the technical areas of the instrument by which precise exploration of a sound language consists of materials produced by the breath, multiphonics and microphony.

Collaborations with John Tilbury, Robin Hayward, Franz Hautzinger, Xavier Charles, Sophie Agnel, Pascal Battus, Eric La Casa, Michel Doneda, Insub Meta Orchestra, Seijiro Murayama Tetuzi Akiyama, Toshimaru Nakamura, John Butcher, Axel Dörner, Isabelle Duthoit... Many festivals about new and experimental music (Europe, USA, Japan ...).

As an electronic music composer, he composes original music and original soundtracks with dance, movies and radio broadcast. He produced the LP The Torn Map in 2013.

In 2011, he was a resident of the villa Kujoyama in Kyoto. He studied the shakuhachi while learning to Honkyoku directory with Mr Yoshio Kurahashi.

Since 2004, he taught at the Haute Ecole des Arts du Rhin in the Sonic research program he co-founded in 2007. He leads the generative improvisation workshop at CFMI in Sélestat since 2012 and conducted educational workshops at the Cité de la Musique in Paris from 2002 to 2012."

-Bertrand Gauguet Website (http://www.bertrandgauguet.com/)
10/27/2025

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"Anouck Genthon is a French violinist and ethnomusicologist involved in the improvised music scene in an approach particularly sensitive to sound. Enriched by her double stance as musician and researcher, she guides her ear by improvised gestures through the surrounding sound-environment."

-Jazz.DK (http://jazz.dk/en/cphjazz/concerts/22506/)
10/27/2025

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Dutch double bassist/composer specialising in contemporary music and free improvisation. She studied at conservatories in Maastricht, Amsterdam and The Hague, has played with ensembles including The Ex and is a member of Le UN.

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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"Benoit Kilian, plays the drums from a concert in the west of La Grosne, with the late Jacky Barbier.... who did not want his shit (set of percussion biggest rotten case of the time) on his small scene !! Thanks Jacky!

The sound, the sound matter never ceases to attract it, and thus improvisation imposes itself as the evidence of its practice.

And that's why, the idea to electrify a BERIMBAU, then to make one boxwood..... it will be BrmB, played in GHOTUL, and sometimes solo.

No more codes, no definite place, no accompanist, no soloist, no leader, no performer, just fraternal Utopia and spirit.

It finds itself fully in the creation and the life of the collective GEX, it is good for the new experiences!

He collaborates with Laborintus, creates sustainable unions, plays with Jean-Luc Petit, Jérôme Noetinger, Benjamin Duboc, Jean Marc Foussat (Red Hammer...) rides NÜK, NÜK ELEKTRIK, KOD B, and embarks on an ambitious project and exciting around HDThoreau: LAND SURVEYOR.

More recently, the solo, on a bass drum of 36 ": GCH36 "

-Benoit Kilian Website (Translated by Google) (http://benoit-kilian.fr/petite-bio)
10/27/2025

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Born 1976 in Lyon and now based in Nantes, she is a classically-trained cellist (with multiple conservatory prizes) and holds a doctorate in cultural history of music. She develops work as improviser, composer and researcher-exploring sound, bow friction, installations and electroacoustic performance.

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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"Lionel Marchetti is a composer of concrete music. First self-taught, he then explores the repertoire of concrete music, as acousmatic art, with the composer Xavier Garcia 1 from 1989 at COREAM (Collective for electroacoustic research and musical action) in Fontaine ( Isère ). He then composed in the studios of the Musical Research Group in Paris, of the Living Music Group of Lyon, of La Muse en circuit in Alfortville, of Césaré in Reims, of Gmem inNational center for musical creation in Marseille, at the training center for intervening musicians (CFMI) in Lyon and in his personal studio. At the same time, Lionel Marchetti pursues a work of poetic writing 2, 3, as well as a theoretical approach to concrete music and the art of the loudspeaker, as a practicing artist of the genre.

His book La musique concrète by Michel Chion 4 remains the most noticed - as well as his essay Speaker, voice and mirror... - technical essay in the form of a letter 5.

Its catalog is currently rich with more than a hundred concrete works.

Since 1990, he has been a lecturer in the art of concrete music and electroacoustic techniques at CFMI Lyon at the University of Lyon 2 (see BNF authority notice)."

-Wikipedia (Translated by Google) (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Marchetti)
10/27/2025

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A French vocalist, composer and sound-artist who treats the voice as an instrument, an object of research and a healing tool. Early training in Paris and Bombay, active in collectives and experimental contexts; founded the mixed sighted/visually-impaired choir "Chœur tac-til".

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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"Born April 1966, in Marseille, Jérôme Noetinger discovered experimental music under the influence of the Déficit Des Années Antérieures in Caen. Composer/improviser/sound artist working with electroacoustic devices. Composing sometimes musique concrete in the studio, and performing improvised music using electroacoustic devices such as: the reel to reel tape recorder Revox A77 and magnetic tape, analogue synthesisers, mixing desks, speakers, microphones, various electronic household objects and home-made electronica. Performing both solo and in ensembles, and collaborating often, and touring extensively internationally. Director of Metamkine, non-profit organisation dedicated to the distribution of improvised and electroacoustic music, which operates with an on-line mail order catalogue. Member of editorial committee of quarterly journal of contemporary sound, poetry and performance, Revue & Corrigée since 1987 Studied electronic music under the direction of Xavier Garcia from 1986 -1988 at COREAM in Fontaine. Organises studio workshops and conferences around such subjects as: musique concrete, improvisation, audiovisual experiments, questions of distribution and production. Active in the international music network since 1984 working with music, dance, films and painting Member of 102 rue d'Alembert, programming coordinator of exhibitions, concerts and experimental cinema from 1989 -1998 [bio continues...]"

-Echoraum (http://www.echoraum.at/bios/jnoetinger.htm)
10/27/2025

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"Jean-Luc Petit

Saxophones sopranino, alto and baritone, clarinet double bass

Born on 22 November 1954

Alongside his studies at the School of Art in Angoulême, he began learning saxophones and clarinets in a self-taught way. His decisive encounters with first the composer Etienne Rolin and later Kent Carter reinforces him in the idea of ​​becoming a musician. He collaborated for a long time with Etienne Rolin and founded the Trio EVER with him and participated in his many other projects. He meets composer and improviser François Rossé , plays quartet with Kent Carter and meets Kent Carter , musicians like Olivier Johnson , Jean-Jacques Avenel , Takashi Kako , Carlos Zingaro , Glenn Ferris ...

He composes music for the theater and participates with the actor and poet Daniel Crumb in several shows "The small studies of self" , "Love is a dog of hell" on poems of Charles Bukowski , ...

From the beginning improvisation is at the center of his practice and his preoccupations. He performed solo and formed several duets with Benjamin Duboc , Mathias Pontévia , Didier Lasserre , pianist Didier Fréboeuf , trombonist Christiane Bopp , founded with Fabrice Favriou and Adrien Monteiro "Rossignol Genocide", participated in the Orchestra "Le Lobe" Directed by Claire Bergerault , has multiplied the recontres with musicians such as Eric Brochard , Louis-Michel Marion , Claude Parle , Daunik Lazro , Jean-Marc Foussat , Joel Grip , Makoto Sato , Jean-Luc Cappozzo -Brice Godet , etc ...

"I believe that music is formed in time and finds its fulfillment. Programming, defining, schematizing, improvising are the different and not contradictory ways of accompanying the growth of an organism that, like every living thing, is born, grows , Becomes individualized and extinct.The necessity of the ephemeral is the credibility of the form: I do not know the aesthetics of the piece globally, but only the form of a fragment which reproduces constantly as it transforms itself. "

Franco Donatoni"

-Jean-Luc Petit Website (translated by Google) (http://jeanlucpetit.name/spip.php?article10)
10/27/2025

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"Christian Pruvost plays in Circum Grand Orchestra, Feldspath, La Pieuvre, Flu(o) / Impression, Kaze, Christian Pruvost, Pruvost / Mahieux, Signal Box, Quartet Base, Ziph, Wabla, Moondog Madrigals, PCM Bla∫t, Intento, Le Grand Orchestre de MuzzixGenerous, insatiable and prolific musician, Christian Pruvost multiplies the cooperations for several years, whether it is in jazz, improvised music or live performing arts.Solo, (" Ipteravox " released in 2010 on Helix / Circum-Disc), he explores the spectrum of the trumpet, from the softest blowing to the strongest bursts. Playing all acoustic, he develops his repertoire very serenely, and adds some objects that bring him a wealth of extra tones. His inventiveness and the originality of his approach has taken him to perform solo in Brest, Montreuil, Paris, Besançon, Tours, Nantes, Montpellier, Amsterdam and Australia (Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane), invited by pianist Anthony Pateras.With Didier Aschour, he is a co-director of " Round the World of Sound ", creation gathering 14 musicians from the Muzzix collective and Dedalus ensemble in a work on Moondog's madrigals. He can be seen alongside Satoko Fujii, Natsuki Tamura and Peter Orins in the spectacular franco-japanese quartet Kaze (2 albums and several tours in Japan, Israel, and in the USA/Canada since 2011, and a Japanese tour in preparation for september 2014).In a new project called PCM Bla∫t, Christian Pruvost surrounds himself with Maxime Morel (tuba) and Samuel Carpentier (trombone). Together they explore many repertoires - from medieval music to the composers of the XXIst century - but also improvised forms ; altogether in a theatrical and experimental approach. He is also a member of Circum Grand Orchestra, which releases its third album composed by Christophe Hache in 2014, and la Pieuvre, the improvisation orchestra conducted by Olivier Benoit.Blowing masseur in Ziph (collective of individual balloon-membrane horns and creator of the concept of sound massages), he also takes part in the Wabla project with Thierry Madiot, Yanik Miossec and David Bausseron. He can be seen in duo with bass player Nicolas Mahieux, in Flu(o), Arsis quartet, in the orchestra of Zoone Libre collective Vazytouille and in two shows carried by la Cie Générale d'Imaginaire [dukõne] and [ nu ].Collaborations with Axel Dörner, Olivier Benoit, Jérémie Ternoy, Nicolas Mahieux, Otomo Yoshihide, Mina Small, Sean Baxter, Benoît Delbecq, Alain Gibert, Carole Rieussec, Roger Cochini, Sophia Domancich, Giovanna Marini, Didier Levallet, Lucia Recio, Li Ping Ting, Patricia Kuypers, Thierry Madiot, Sophie Agnel, Satoko Fuji, Natsuki Tamura, Jérôme Noetinger, Benjamin Duboc, Didier Lasserre, Makoto Sato, Lionel Marchetti, Cor Fuhler, John Edwards, Tony Buck, Daunik Lazro..."-Muzzix (http://muzzix.info/Pruvost?lang=en)
10/27/2025

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French cellist/improviser who, after studying clarinet, turned to the cello in 1997 and oriented her work toward sound-material extraction, improvisation and experimentation (with transducers, springs, microphones) often in correspondence with dance, text, light and drawing.

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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French violinist (and violist) and sound-artist working in the field of contemporary improvisation for many years. His playing is described as fluid, acrobatic on the half-erased staves of improvisation, drawing cycles, scratching, rubbing, vibration and tentatively merging violins/viola with electronics/extended techniques.

-Squidco 10/27/2025

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