"Thomas Henry Corra (September 14, 1953 - April 9, 1998), better known as Tom Cora, was an American cellist and composer, best known for his improvisational performances in the field of experimental jazz and rock. He recorded with John Zorn, Butch Morris, and The Ex, and was a member of Curlew, Third Person and Skeleton Crew.

Tom Cora was born in Yancey Mills, Virginia, United States. He made his musical debut as drummer on a local television program and in the mid-1970s he played guitar for a Washington, D.C. jazz club house band. He took up the cello while an undergraduate at the University of Virginia and studied with cellist Pablo Casals' student Luis Garcia-Renart and later with vibraphonist Karl Berger. During this time he formed his own group, The Moose Skowron Tuned Metal Ensemble and began constructing instruments for it.

In 1979 Cora moved to New York City where he worked with Shockabilly guitarist Eugene Chadbourne, introducing the cello to the honky tonk circuits of North America. He performed at improvising clubs and venues in New York with John Zorn, Fred Frith, Andrea Centazzo, Butch Morris, Wayne Horvitz, David Moss, Toshinori Kondo and others. Cora also collaborated with George Cartwright and Bill Laswell which led to the formation of the art rock band Curlew in 1979 . Cora remained with Curlew for over ten years and appeared on five of their albums.

In 1982 Tom Cora and Fred Frith formed Skeleton Crew, an improvising rock and jazz band best known for their live performances where they played various instruments simultaneously. Cora and Frith were each one-man bands on stage and for their act, Cora constructed musical contraptions he could play with his feet. The band existed for five years during which time they toured Europe, North America and Japan extensively. They made two studio albums, Learn to Talk (1984) and The Country of Blinds (1986), the latter with Zeena Parkins who had joined the band in 1984. In October 1983 Skeleton Crew joined Duck and Cover, a commission from the Berlin Jazz Festival, for a performance in West Berlin, followed by another in February 1984 in East Berlin.

Cora was also a member of the improvising trio Third Person, formed in 1990 as a live collaboration with percussionist Samm Bennett and a "third person" who changed from concert to concert. Two CDs of some of their performances were released, The Bends in 1991 (with "third persons" Don Byron, George Cartwright, Chris Cochrane, Nic Collins, Catherine Jauniaux, Myra Melford, Zeena Parkins, and Marc Ribot) and Luck Water in 1995 (with "third person" Kazutoki Umezu).

Cora performed with a number of other bands, including Nimal with Momo Rossel and post-rock quartet Roof. In 1990, he played two concerts with Dutch anarcho-punk band, The Ex, and the success of this collaboration resulted in Cora performing hundreds of concerts with The Ex and appearing on two of their CDs. In 1995 in The Netherlands, Cora and Frith collaborated, as Skeleton Crew, on Etymology, a CD-ROM sound sample library of sonic sounds and wire manipulations.

Tom Cora died of malignant melanoma at the age of 44 in a hospital in the south of France, where he lived with his wife, singer Catherine Jauniaux, and their son, Elia Corra."

"Catherine Jauniaux is a Belgian avant-garde singer. She has been described as a "one-woman-orchestra", a "human sampler", and "one of the best kept secrets in the world of improvised music". Her solo album, Fluvial (1983) is regarded as one of her most accomplished works. She was married to the late American experimental cellist and composer Tom Cora.

Catherine Jauniaux began her career as an actress in Belgium at the age of 15. During the late 1970s and early 1980s, she sang with several experimental rock groups, including Aksak Maboul and The Work. In 1983 she teamed up with The Work's Tim Hodgkinson (ex-Henry Cow) in London to record her first solo album, Fluvial. Jauniaux and Hodgkinson wrote most of the tracks for the album, which are "imagined folk songs" that include elements of "contemporary art song, African singing, Native American legends, and alien nursery rhymes". The album centres on Jauniaux's voice with additional instrumentation by Hodgkinson, Bill Gilonis (The Work), Lindsay Cooper (ex-Henry Cow) and Georgie Born (ex-Henry Cow). AllMusic rated the album as "highly recommended, especially to fans of unusual female vocal art."

In the early 1990s, Jauniaux moved to New York City, where she became part of the Downtown music scene, performing with a number of musicians, including Fred Frith, Tom Cora, Marc Ribot, Zeena Parkins, Butch Morris and Ikue Mori. Jauniaux founded the duo Vibraslaps with Ikue Mori and later married Tom Cora. In 1995 Jauniaux and Cora moved to Southern France where she continued performing with various European musicians, including Louis Sclavis, Heiner Goebbels, Otomo Yoshihide and Christian Marclay. Cora died in 1998.

Jauniaux works regularly with artists in the field of dance and film, and sang in Heiner Goebbels's opera, Roemische Hunde in Frankfurt in 1991. She is inspired by traditional music, both real and imagined, and her performances mix seriousness and humour. She explores sound, emotion, melody and abstraction, and her vocal improvisations range from "traditional French chansons to breathy folk to Dadaistic glossolalia"."

"Louis-Michel Marion"

"After starting as a rock / blues bassist and studying speech therapy and language sciences, he studied bass with Jean-François Jenny-Clark and Pierre Hellouin. He takes great musical lessons by playing alongside Jacques Di Donato, Vinko Globokar, Joe McPhee, Steve Potts, Paul Rogers, Annick Nozati, Keith Rowe, Malcolm Goldstein, Le Quan Ninh (non exhaustive list).

He approaches his instrument without a priori, simply as a sound generator. His work of improvisation feeds on listening to musicians such as Joëlle Léandre, G. Scelsi, Barre Phillips, Daunik Lazro, I. Xenakis, S. Sciarrino and Morton Feldman (non exhaustive list).

"As comfortable in the contemporary field as in the improvisation - still a similarity with Joëlle Léandre, finely combining the play with the bow and the pizzicato, Marion takes us to countries of a poetic quite joyous And repetitive at will. "Serge Perrot / Improjazz

"Marion affirms her desire to pull ropes out of her double bass all the life they contain, until the last breath. Arco, he becomes the receiver, then the transmitter of vibrations that occupy the space to draw a sonorous, moving and palpable material, so much his work on the resonances, the grain and the colors allows each one To feel it physically. Like a sculpture of the invisible. We do not listen to this music, we receive it in the hollow of the stomach, throbbing and dark, animated by a continuous movement, such as the choreography of a struggle between internal forces whose tension never weakens; She opened the doors of an unknown attracting and disturbing in equal proportions. "Denis Desassis / Citizen Jazz

For twenty years, he has devoted himself mainly to improvisation in ensembles of all sizes, from duet to 15tet (notably with Systme Friche / Jacques DiDonato) to a continuing relationship with choreographer Aurore Gruel (duet Hay Que Caminar) as well as the exploration of solo double bass parts (Scelsi, Scodanibbio, Donatoni, Bussotti, Goldstein ...). Fascinated by the music of Eliane Radigue, he met her in 2104 and created "Occam Océan XIX" for five-string bass, "Occam River V" for double bass and bass clarinet with Carol Robinson (Music Festival Démesurées in November 2014) "Occam Hexa III" (Cartier Foundation, July 2016).

Regularly invited by the Ensemble Ultim'Asonata - specializing in contemporary music, he is also a member of the group Azéotropes (contemporary jazz, improvisation) around the pianist composer Loris Binot.In 2009, he founded the Nocturnal Archipelago, a string and percussion ensemble dedicated to music on the margins of improvisation and open writing, for which he composed.

Sensitive to architecture, the spatial and acoustic environment, he particularly likes to plan and organize musical projects in unconventional places.Always leaving for interdisciplinary meetings, he participated in numerous choreographic, theatrical or other creations ... and has been closely interested in the viola da gamba for a few years.

LM Marion is regularly asked to conduct improvisation workshops by conservatories, music schools or in connection with festivals (Nancy, Metz, Lille, Montreuil, Malzéville, Troyes, Reims, Saint Dié, CNFPT of Nancy, CEFEDEM Of Lorraine, CCAM-National Scene of Vandoeuvre les Nancy, University of Reims-Champagne Ardenne, Conservatory of Saint-Die of the Vosges, CRR of Nancy ...).

His research has led him to take part in numerous theatrical, choreographic, cinematographic and radio creations (France Musique: "Les contes du jour et du nuit", "Une unevisvis", "Alla Breve"),

Collaborations with Cie Ormone / Aurore Gruel, Cie Echo / Christine Koetzel, Mille Faille / Marie Cambois Co., Li-Luo Cie / Camille Mutel, Cie In Freech ..., Cie Inouïe / Thierry Balasse / Maud Contini, Cie Distortion / Hervé Birolini, readings with Michaël Glück (Festival Poema)

Among his recent creations:

- "Mnemoliths" composition for the Nocturnal Archipelago, creation at the Music Action 2013 festival (CCAM-National Scene of Vandœuvre les Nancy)- "Fantaisie en Si", by Françoise Toullec, commissioned by Radio France for the program Alla Breve- "Nine Days" Cie ENZ at the Festival Exp-Edition / Biennale de la danse en Lorraine- "Riverrun" (around Finnegans Wake by James Joyce), "If any" and "Two by two" with Maud Contini (Cie Temporal)

He has published 2 CDs solo:

"Grounds" Poem-meditation on the low string, on the Emil label"5 strophes", on the label Kadima Collective Records

Some of his collaborations include: Daunik Lazro, Jacques Di Donato, Xavier Charles, Camel Zekri, Dominique Regef, Malcolm Goldstein, Fran�oise Toullec, Mimi Lorenzini, Steve Potts, Annick Nozati, Eliane Radigue, Matthias Kaul, Thierry Madiot, Fabrice Villard, Matthias Pontevia Jean-Luc Petit, Eric Brochard, Jean-Marc Montera, Dominique R�p�caud, Claude Tchamitchian, Eric Echampard, Joe Mc Phee, Laurent Dailleau, Sophie Agnel, Fabrice Charles, Laurent Charles, J�r�me Bourdellon, David Chiesa, Jim Denley, Keith Rowe, Philippe Berger, Herv� Birolini, Aurore Gruel, Antoine Arlot, Carol Robinson, H�l�ne Breschand..."