"French double bass player (born 12 September 1951 in Aix-en-Provence, France), improviser and composer, Joëlle Léandre is one of the dominant figures of the new European music. Trained in orchestral as well as contemporary music, she has played with l'Itinéraire, 2e2m and Pierre Boulez's Ensemble Intercontemporain. Joëlle Léandre has also worked with Merce Cunningham and with John Cage, who has composed especially for her - as have Scelsi, Fénelon, Hersant, Lacy, Campana, Jolas, Clementi and about 40 composers.

As well as working in contemporary music, Léandre has played with some of the great names in jazz and improvisation, such as Derek Bailey, Anthony Braxton, George Lewis, Evan Parker, Irene Schweizer, William Parker, Barre Phillips, Pascal Contet, Steve Lacy, Lauren Newton, Peter Kowald, Urs Leimgruber, Mat Maneri, Roy Campbell, Fred Frith, John Zorn, Mark Naussef, Marilyn Crispell, India Cooke and so many others...

She has written extensively for dance and theater, and has staged a number of multidisciplinary performances. She got the DAAD at Berlin, is welcomed as artist resident at Villa Kujiyama (Kyoto). In 2002, 2004 and 2006, she is Visiting Professor at Mills college, Oakland, CA, Chaire Darius Milhaud, for improvisation and composition. Her work as a composer and a performer, both in solo recitals and a part of ensembles, has put her under the lights of the most prestigious stages of Europe, the Americas and Asia.

From 1981 to 2009, Joëlle Léandre has about 150 recordings to her credit.

"After a private career in France, Pascal Contet continued his musical studies in Friborg (Switzerland), at the Musikhochschule in Hanover, at the Royal Conservatory of Copenhagen and at the Akademie der Künste in Graz. Laureate of the Cziffra (1983) and Menuhin (1986) foundations, he received the Bleustein-Blanchet Foundation Prize for Vocation in 1989. In 2012, first for the accordion, he was nominated for the Victoires de la musique classique (categories " Instrumental soloist of the year "and" recording of the year ").

Since 1993, he has been working on the constitution of a repertoire for accordion and today has to his credit around 300 creations from influential composers such as Claude Ballif, Franck Bedrossian, Luciano Berio, Edith Canat de Chizy, Bernard Cavanna, Jean-Pierre Drouet, Peter Eötvös, Ivan Fedele, Sofia Gubaïdulina, Philippe Hurel, Bruno Mantovani, Sébastien Rivas, Yann Robin among others.

Invited by prestigious national and international festivals, he plays with the Orchester Philharmonique de Radio France, the Orchester de la Suisse Romande, the Orchester National de l'Opéra de Paris, the Orchester de Chambre de Lausanne, Les Siècles sous the direction of Diégo Masson, Pierre Boulez, Esa- Pekka Salonen, Jean-Claude Casadesus, Susanna Mäkkli. François-Xavier Roth, Daniel Kawka in around 57 countries among others at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon, Victoria Hall in Geneva, Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires, Cité de la Musique in Paris, Stadthalle in Wuppertal, Timisoara, Berkeley University, Shanghai Opera, Tokyo, Seoul Arts center, Yangon (Goethe Institut de Birmanie), Mexico Unam, Cervantino Festival, Tashkent, Almata, Bogota (Sala Arango), eleven countries in West and Central Africa, Helsinki, Copenhagen, Berlin, Hannover ...

A permanent member of the 2e2m and Ars Nova ensembles, he also performs with the Short-circuit ensembles and the Modern Ensemble and has as chamber music partners the clarinetist Paul Meyer, the cellist Ophélie Gaillard, the Diotima, Danel and again Debussy.

With Les Siècles, the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain, the Orchestras of Picardy, Brittany, Strasbourg, Auvergne, Lorraine, Mulhouse, Bratislava, Pascal Contet performs the accordion concertos dedicated to him by Jean Françaix, Bernard Cavanna, Bruno Mantovani (2018)

Composer-performer, he collaborates with Marie-Christine Barrault, Anne Alvaro, Fabrice Melquiot, François Marthouret or Dieudonné Niangouna (Festival d'Avignon at the Cloître des Célestins). He is preparing for a play with the actress Séverine Ferrer.

For 25 years, he has been improvising in the company of double bass player Joëlle Léandre (Choc de Jazz Magazine for their record 3). He has been performing and recording with the famous mouth organ player Wu Wei since 2003, invited singer Camille to join him during his residency at the Europajazz festival, some duets and trios with Scanner (Robin Rimbaud), Joël Cadbury or even with the Kinshasa group: Jupiter Okwess international.

His predilection for improvisation continues with the accompaniment of silent films (cine-concerts) or in the field of digital visual arts with the artist Miguel Chevalier and his Origine du monde and in interactive digital visual creation Other worlds from the 2018-2019 season with Thierry Coduys. Very original and intense, his Utopian Wind recital takes place in immersion in the dark.

He has composed several performance music for Odile Duboc, Mié Coquempot, Fattoumi-Lamoureux, Loic Touzé, Lola Sémonin (La Madeleine Proust), Didier Galas, Dieudonné Niangouna (Les Inepties volantes), Le Vent des Anches, fictional music for France 2 and France 3, cinema for François Marthouret, for Delle Piane - Alain Margot (Télévision Suisse romande), Credits of the Belfort Film Festival, Canal + and parade for the top designer Franck Sorbier (Fall-winter 2016 parade)

Among his 50 discographic opuses, Utopian Wind released under his own label Plein Jeu and Lyric Fantasies, recorded with clarinetist Paul Meyer at Sony Classical, were enthusiastically relayed by the press."