Louise Jallu
Origin: France
Bandoneon virtuoso and composer Louise Jallu is one of those musicians who transcend borders.
Line-up
Louise Jallu - bandonéon, Karsten Hochapfel - guitare, Grégoire Letouvet - piano, fender rhodes, Alexandre Perrot - contrebasse
About us
A classical piano, a double bass that rumbles its jazzy side, an electric guitar that rubs shoulders with rock and drums that flirt with contemporary music, led by the bandoneon that ingeniously binds and loosens the whole. Music that transcends borders. As she did with Piazzolla, in her new album ‘Jeu’ Louise Jallu and her bandoneon take on the great names of classical music (Schumann, Berg), jazz, and more popular references (Ravel's Bolero, Brassens)... Louise's personal arrangements sound like popular compositions, a game of musical hide-and-seek, a music that frees itself from styles and codes with ardour and freedom.
Nominated for the Victoires du Jazz 2021, in the Revelation category (PRIX FRANK TÉNOT)
Winner of the Jean-Luc Lagardère Foundation 2019, jazz & classical music category
Resident at LA VILLA MEDICIS in January 2022
You have to watch her silently bend over the bellows of her bandoneon like the pages of a Pop-up book, wide open between two flaps that look like keyboards... The book of the child in wonder and the book of the artist in search of transgression. The musician's gaze seems to embrace the miniature journey of a life, each cardboard fold representing a memorable stage. The discovery of the bandoneon with her older sister in a family of music lovers where Thelonious Monk's piano crossed paths with that of Béla Bartok. Learning to play the ‘bando’ at the age of five at the Conservatoire in Gennevilliers, the girl's home town, in a class taught by soloists from all over the world (César Stroscio and Juan José Mosalini). Analysis and writing under the guidance of composer Bernard Cavanna, director of this non-conformist establishment. Awards (2nd Prize at the Klingenthal International Competition and Diplôme d'Etudes Musicales, just before and shortly after her 17th birthday, Lagardère Foundation laureate in the Classical Music & Jazz category in 2019, resident at the Villa Médicis - Académie de France in Rome in January 2022) and premieres, for various ensembles (including the Louise Jallu Quartet), works (Jacques Rebotier, Bernard Cavanna - more than one opus -, Klaus Peter Werani... ) and albums (Francesita, Piazzolla 2021, Jeu).
You'll have to watch her pull out of her pleated, buttoned-up Pandora's box, musical energies drawn from popular sources (the Greek singer Katerina Fotinaki, her Italian-born counterpart Sanseverino) or avant-garde sources (György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen), Argentinian musicians (from Astor Piazzolla to Gustavo Beytelmann and Tomás Gubitsch) and jazz musicians (Claude Barthelemy, Médéric Collignon, Claude Tchamitchian, Michel Portal), for want of a better term, have given new impetus to many genres, not just tango, with an adventurous if not experimental approach.
Finally, it should be seen as a model for future generations. A model to be listened to carefully, so as not to imitate it, so as not to limit ourselves. A role model who cannot be taught as a school, and yet who teaches, at the Conservatoire de Gennevilliers, of course. The bandoneon in freedom, and vice versa.
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