François Cotinaud

Biography

François Cotinaud studied music with Alan Silva, Cecil Taylor, Kenny Wheeler, or Steve Lacy. He then created the label Musivi and leaded various experiences with Denis Colin (Texture), Bobby Few, Ramón López, Glenn Ferris, Enrico Rava, Pascale Labbé, Serge Adam and Sylvie Cohen, and recorded several albums with them.

In 1985, he created a quartet with Ramón López, Heriberto Paredes, Thierry Colson, later with Gilles Coronado. His solo CD "Loco Solo" (1998) around Luciano Berio offers his trend for contemporary music, and provocation. He performed with percussionist Pierre Charpy (electro-acoustics device) around Arthur Rimbaud's texts ("Rimbaud and M.A.O.").

Has always seduced by oriental music, after a stint in the "Tierra del Fuego" group led by Pablo Nemirovsky, he showed in "Yo M'enamori" its Mediterranean sensibility through the prism of a contemporary re-reading, freed of tradition, with pianist Sylvie Cohen.

He stand apart from other jazz musicians of his generation in his formal research between text (poetry) and music (improvised or written) in various formations, the duet with cellist Deborah Walker ("Poetica Vivace"), the ensemble Text'up (texts by Raymond Queneau, Arthur Rimbaud), and the ensemble Luxus (Pascale Labbé, voice / Jérôme Lefebvre, guitar) with Rainer Maria Rilke.

He played with the Spoumj (Soundpainting Orchestra of the Union of Jazz Musicians, directed by François Jeanneau), and founded the group "Algèbre" with Pierre Durand (guitar) and Daniel Beaussier (winds). Involved in Soundpainting, composition language created by Walter Thompson, he founded in 2010 the ensemble Klangfarben (dance, musik and actors), which makes performances at museums, theaters, recordings dedicated to Arnold Schoenberg and John Cage.

He had organized and produce the two first Soundpainting Festival in Paris (2013-2014), with 101 artists, major Soundpainting formations like : Spoumj, Klanfarben, Amalgammes, TSO, the Spang, Walter Thompson Orchestra, Batik, Helsinki Soundpainting Ensemble.

Pedagogy

Cofounder with A.Silva then director of an improvisation musik school in Paris from 1977 to 1987 (I.A.C.P.), François Cotinaud taught musical improvisation not only as an idiomatic jazz language, but also in a much freer environment, and leaded collectiv improvisation courses since 1978. He teaches Soundpainting in Paris (conservatoire Mozart) - first official class, Finland, Germany, and many towns in France. He contributed to international Think Tanks of soundpainters (Bordeaux, Londres, Barcelone, Paris).

Compositions

Discography