Agnès Palier

After formative years highlighted by classical singing, French songs, and
Jazz, Agnes Palier has been devoting herself to free improvisation.

Besides a long term duo with saxophone player Stéphane Rives, she has
collaborated and performed with many artists, musicians, visual artists and
dancers from France and other countries.

Member of Klac-Sons (setting up concerts at Théatre Sur le Pavé - Paris)
together with S.Rives, F.Blondy and B.Denzler, 1999 - 2001.

Member of Ivraie orchestra together with Paris-based musicians, in residence
at Instants Chavirés, 2002 - 2004
(S.Agnel,  P.Battus, F.Blondy, L.Capece, M.Carrozzo, B.Denzler, Q.Dubost,
D.Erdmann, B.Gauguet, T.Madiot, J.S.Mariage, A.Palier, E.Perraud, S.Rives,
C.Séhnaoui, S.Séhnaoui, G.TorresŠ)

She is trained in the Feldenkraïs Method (Awareness Through Movement and
Functional Integration) in Paris. She runs classes and workshops on sung and
spoken voice and improvisation for adults and children.

She has performed extensively in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy with
OlivierToulemonde, Pascal Battus, Jean-Philippe Gross, Christine Sehnaoui,
and Mathias Forge. A recent tour with Jack Wright and Olivier Toulemonde
took her to Mulhouse, Bern, Strasbourg, Munster, Hamburg, and Berlin.

Discography:
Oxymore, with Stephane Rives, soprano sax, on Labelle du Quai, 1999
Rocca, with Olivier Toulemonde, acoustic set, on Creative Sources
Recordings,
2005

Contact : contact at agnes-palier.net
Website: http://www.agnes-palier.net/Ukindex.htm


                                                                                                 
Olivier Toulemonde
Born 1972. Plays improvised music with amplified objects, tight threads and springs.
Composes electroacoustic music, for concerts, radio and video. 
 
In 1993, he was a co-founder of " Collectif Ishtar " (in Bourg-en-Bresse) together with 20 other musicians and dancers. A year later, he joined " Collectif et Compagnie " (in Annecy), where he first started working with electro-acoustic music.
 
Since then, he has played in several festivals and clubs such as Musique Action (Vandoeuvre), Densités (Fresne-en-Woëvre), Synthèse (Bourges), LEM (Barcelona), Glasgow International festival, 38èmes Rugissants (Grenoble), Musiques 97 (Marseille), Concerts d'Hiver et d'Aujourd'hui (Annecy), Festival des Musiques Innovatrices (St Etienne), Curva Minore (Palermo), Cruce (Madrid), ZDB (Lisbon), Festival Luisances (Brest), Extrapool (Nijmegen), Instants Chavirés (Paris), Horlieu (Lyon), Panonnica (Nantes), Malterie (Lille), APO33 (Nantes), Kafé Myzik (Lyon), Petit Faucheux (Tours), Contemporary art centre (Caen), Modern and contemporary art museum (Strasbourg)…

He likes to work with dancers (many projects with E. Borgo, L. Terrier, L. Chourlin).
 
Since 1997, compose music for Muriel Toulemonde's videos, which have been exhibited in many contemporary art museums.
 
Works often with N. Desmarchelier, M. Doneda, A. Palier and A. Basso.
 
Has crossed the paths of countless artists, such as Le Quan Ninh, Erik M, Jérome Noetinger, Lionel Marchetti, Alain Savouret, Camel Zekri, Lelio Gianetto, Elio Martisciello, J.C. Camps, Carole Rieussec, Alessandro Bosetti, Norbert Möslang…, with whom he has shared defining musical experiences.
 
Discography:
1999 : Eclats de Mémoire (electro-acoustic music) - label MIA
2000 : Bug (with N. Desmarchelier) - label Collectif Ishtar
2003 : Revermont (with N. Desmarchelier & M. Doneda) - label Ektic
2004 : L'Inventaire (electro-acoustic music)
2005 : Rocca (with A. Palier) - label Creative Sources
 http://olivier.toulemonde.free.fr
 
contact: olivier.toulemonde at 9online.fr
http://olivier.toulemonde.free.fr/

Reviews of Palier and Toutlemond: Rocco

"Singer Agnès Palier moved from classical music, chanson to jazz. In the last few years she concentrates on singing in a free improvised context, which is the case on this new CD 'Rocca'. For this occasion she is accompanied  by Oliver Toulemonde on electroacoustic set. Toulemonde may be known as one of the founding members of the Collectif Ishtar. Palier screams, yells, murmurs, growls, etc with her voice in a way one aspects from vocal artists like her. Toulemonde creates a great diversity of sounds, textures, etc. with his electro-acoustic set. The noises he produces are the perfect company for Palier's voice: the same in atmosphere, color, intensity, etc. I can't detect exactly what Toulemonde is doing on his so called 'electroacoustic set', but he seems to use all kind of objects. They are played and used by him in a very physical, lively and elegant way. Another reason that makes Toulemonde and Palier an interesting duo. Their improvisations play at at a highly abstract level. But on the other hand their sound poetry stays 'on the floor': its dramatic and dynamic, and very human. Their explorations evolve within a wide range of sounds and musical possibilities. I never had a dull moment with this one.
Dolf Mulder (Vital Weekly)

"Agnès Palier seems to find her sounds inside a small cave within herself, enervated emissions of breath and tiny vibrations of vocal cords coalescing into a highly personal fairyland – without the happy ending. Although a singer coming from a classical/jazz background, she uses her tools with a sort of repressed anxiety that sets the overall tone of Rocca close to those transcendental absurd theatre pieces which have the audience either scratching their heads or wailing in approval. Embryonic phonemes and timbral nuances coagulate according to their own strange morphology, at times sounding like a cassette player left on a towel at the beach with the batteries running out and the tape melting. Olivier Toulemonde's discreet amplified objects are the perfect complement to Palier’s frail digressions, microsonic crumbles, and percussive clucks and snaps; the deconstructed machinery of his caressing whispers underlines Palier's suffering postures, like those muffled earthquake thump-and-drag sounds made by children at play in the apartment above you. A valuable experience in uncomfortable pleasure and an inquisitive dismemberment of your listening attitudes."–MR
http://www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2006/05may_text.html#8

                   Jack Wright                

Over the past twenty-five years Jack Wright has been a bold saxophonist, as well as an influential musical personality. Either on tour or organizing the next one, he has played in virtually every venue available to experimental improvised music in the US, and many in Europe as well. In 1982 he created Spring Garden Music as a vehicle for organizing an improvisational music community, with a home base at his house in Philadelphia, now a residence for improvisers. He has been called the Johnny Appleseed of free improvisation for his encouragement to young players. As a musical explorer as well, his music passes through radical shifts of style and approach from one year to the next, yet always somehow identifiable as his own. These days he is playing mostly alto and soprano saxophones, in every possible direction, sometimes even recognizable as such. He lives in Easton, which enables him to commute easily to NYC and Phila. He is also increasingly active in Europe, touring both sides of the Atlantic with European musicians.

The Washington Post once allowed this to be printed: "In the rarefied, underground world of experimental free improvisation, saxophonist Jack Wright is king". And a German publication, Bad Alchemy, had this to say of his solo: "Wright does not make music, he embodies it, he transforms it with a naiveté of another order. It grows into a sound river, he is part of the diaphragm through which the heterogeneous whispers."

Jack has over sixty partners around the US and in Europe with whom he plays on his travels and records. His most recent tours have been with Fabrizio Spera and Alberto Braida in Italy; with Agnes Palier and Olivier Toutlemond in France, Switzerland and Germany, with Michael Johnsen and Sebastien Cirotteau in Europe; with French soprano sax player Michel Doneda and percussionist Tatsuya Nakatani in Japan, France and the US; Carol Genetti, sound vocalist of Chicago, and Jon Mueller, percussionist of Milwaukee; cellist Bob Marsh of the Bay area; Nate Wooley, trumpet, of NYC in Europe; Michael Griener percussion and Sabine Vogel flute of Berlin; Reuben Radding, NYC bassist; and Phil Durrant, English laptop musician.

Discography--36 records and cd's, see below for details

For a full bio, writings, sound files and list of recordings visit his website: www.springgardenmusic.com

feature article in Signal to Noise Magazine: www.paristransatlantic.com/magazine/monthly2003/04apr_text.html

webpage of bio and writings in French:

en francais