In 2023, Les Rencontres AJC will take place from Monday 4 to Wednesday 6 December.
As in previous years, this will be an opportunity to combine professional meetings, conferences, workshops and concerts for AJC members and jazz and improvised music professionals.
Back to the Dynamo de Banlieues Bleues in Pantin for two evenings of concerts – a strong signal in these difficult times for the distribution of our music. On Monday 4, the traditional presentation of the Jazz Migration winners will bring Adèle Viret Quartet, Inui, Petite Lucette and Prospectus to the stage. The following day, an exceptional evening dedicated to helping you discover projects bringing together French and European artists – as a way of continuing our European openness and supporting jazz creation!
And last but not least, professional days – a time for meetings, exchanges and work between French and international jazz professionals – including the AJC General Assembly and a conference on the ambitions of the jazz world in relation to the ecological transition, which will also take place at the Dynamo de Banlieues Bleues on the morning of Wednesday 6.
concerts
Jazz Migration #9 Winners
Adèle Viret – Cello / Oscar Viret – Trumpet / Wajdi Riahi – Piano / Pierre Hurty – Drums
Adele Viret decided to return to the piano of her childhood to celebrate the ordinary and the common. Out of this spontaneous impulse, she has woven a canvas around which to weave her cello and the voices of three musicians dear to her heart. The result is a chamber music atmosphere in which role-sharing, relay and permutation are as essential as a generous dose of mischief and daring. We sail tenderly between horizons that seem to be bathed in the Mediterranean, or others where the sky is more uncertain, perhaps stormy. And as we sail, we hear tides, open spaces and other youthful songs!
Valeria Vitrano – Singing / Clémence Lagier – Singing / Maya Cros – Keyboards / Dimitri Kogane – Drums
Since 2019, INUI has managed not to reinvent anything, but to invent itself in everything. Inspired by Inuitor Pygmy songs, the voices are invented and recomposed. Vocal duels and fusions, imperturbable synthetic bass, drums that raise their ostinatos. The quartets sets fire to Incendie, soars with Aria and shamans with Primitives. All the way to first prize in the international competition of the Crest Jazz Festival, in august 2022. And his first EP, Murmuration, released in march 2023 on the Bordeaux label Mazeto Square. Until the same year when he was included in the Jazz Migration #9 selection. Until today, when everything is recomposed, again and again, in a trance steeped in dreaminess and frantic rhythms.
Clémentine Ristord – Saxophones / Sylvain Fouché – Piano, keyboards / Pierre-Antoine Despatures – Double bass / Manon Saillard – Vibraphone / Mathieu Imbert – Drums
Petite Lucette gives us a music that shakes us out of our dryness, drenches our dormant rage and sets our sadness on fire. These five musicians are virtuosos of the fall, and their intense rhythms give rise to the joy of lively outbursts. Thanks to an evolving instrumentarium that confuses and affirms timbres, they deploy powerful polyrhythms in the service of narrative, precise and free compositions. Their lively presence opens doors and unravels forms, letting in a shudder of free jazz, a breath of silence, in the colorful thickness of a jazz touched by the world and the present, alive in the sincerity of improvisation and the taste for collective play.
Léa Ciechelski – Saxophones, flutes / Henri Peyrous – Saxophones, clarinets / Julien Ducoin – Double bass / Florentin Hay – Drums
Léa Ciechelski, Henri Peyrous, Julien Ducoin and Florentin Hay met in sessions with some of the great jazz figures before inventing their own music, which is characterized by a remarkable clarity, combined with a raw acoustic sound and a certain purity. The songs of his leaderless, harmony-free quartet are based on a variety of writing devices, but all are imbued with a singular lyricism, expressiveness and sincerity. Everything moves in this formation of soloists: forms, themes, the place of each individual…Following the organic impulses of improvisation, the world circulated, bounces and soars to create a moment of playful and, above all, free sharing.
Three French-European projects
Daniel Erdmann Sextet “Thérapie de Couple”
Daniel Erdmann – saxophone / Hélène Duret – clarinet/bass clarinet / Théo Ceccaldi – violin / Vincent Courtois – cello / Robert Lucaciu – double bass / Eva Klesse – drums
Daniel Erdmann’s ‘Thérapie de Couple’ examines the Franco-German couple, the driving force behind Europe despite its eternal crisis. While in recent years Daniel Erdmann’s projects have mainly involved small ensembles, this time he is bringing together a sextet. The choice of musicians came from the way Daniel imagined the sound. An orchestral sound, with a mixture of bowed strings and reeds, in low and medium registers, with a stable, velvety rhythmic base. This orchestration makes it possible to work in layers, harmonically, melodically, in counterpoint, or both at the same time.
A project supported by Jazzahead Bremen, Jazzdor SMAC Jazz Strasbourg in partnership with AJC. With the support of Jazzus Reims.
Karja/Renard/Wandinger
Kirke Karja – piano / Etienne Renard – double bass / Ludwig Wandinger – drums
Karja/Renard/Wandinger is a brand new international ensemble focusing on experimental improvised music. They began playing together in 2019 and in the summer of 2022 released their dynamic debut album ‘The Wrong Needle’. The trio is led by the vigorous and award-winning Estonian pianist Kirke Karja. Together with French bassist Etienne Renard and German drummer Ludwig Wandinger, the trio focuses on extended techniques, with elements of free improvisation and contemporary composition. The trio draws its inspiration from scary old silent films and broken machines.
Shadowlands
Lauren Kinsella – voice / Kit Downes – piano & organ / Robin Fincker – saxophone & clarinet
Inspired by a blend of early music, folk and plainsong, Shadowlands weaves a form of contemporary chamber music rich in sonic textures. Three vibrant voices from Europe’s creative music scene, adept at crossing genres, agree to leap together into the unknown, in a repertoire where improvisation rubs shoulders with centuries-old melodies and original compositions. The language of Kit Downes, a key pianist on the new British scene, blends with that of Anglophile saxophonist and clarinettist Robin Fincker and Irish singer Lauren Kinsella in a shared desire to question slowness and the right gesture. The stretched, lilting melodies are surrounded by a halo of shimmering, shifting sound.
Meetings and Lectures
Wednesday 6 december at la Dynamo de Banlieues Bleues – 10 a.m
- Panel Debate – Collectively reinventing the way music will be distributed in the future
Considering the crises of recent years, and on the eve of a future that everyone would agree is uncertain, it now seems clear that the music sector, particularly live music, must embark on a crucial transition in the face of economic, ecological, territorial, and artistic challenges. What are the major issues we need to tackle today, and how should we approach them? What should we be aiming for to shape an innovative, resilient music sector that is more considerate of its players and the regions in which it operates, as well as issues of ecology and diversity? What major transformations do we need to collectively imagine in order to reinvent the way music is distributed?
Speakers : TBA
Tuesday 5 december at Villette Makerz – 9:30 p.m
Cycles of discussion around on the issues of audiences
Discussions on the majors issues facing the network in terms of audiences: artistic, ticketing, public experience, etc.
Wednesday 6 December at la Dynamo de Banlieues Bleues – 10:00 a.m
Panel Debate – Collectively reinventing the way music will be distributed in the future
Considering the crises of recent years, and on the eve of a future that everyone would agree is uncertain, it now seems clear that the music sector, particularly live music, must embark on a crucial transition in the face of economic, ecological, territorial, and artistic challenges. What are the major issues we need to tackle today, and how should we approach them? What should we be aiming for to shape an innovative, resilient music sector that is more considerate of its players and the regions in which it operates, as well as issues of ecology and diversity? What major transformations do we need to collectively imagine in order to reinvent the way music is distributed?
Speakers : TBA
Monday 4th December at Villette Makerz – 2:00 p.m
Day of professional meetings
Tuesday 5th December at Villette Makerz – 9:30 a.m
Day of professional meetings
