Félicien Brut

Félicien Brut, accordion


“I am convinced that the accordion, through the popular imprint it carries, can be a vector of openness to classical music and a catalyst for the renewal of contemporary creation. ”

Invented by an Austrian, manufactured in Italy, transformed in Russia, widely played in Latin America and a symbol of the Roaring Twenties in France, the accordion is a great traveller who shows great capacity for adaptation. And that’s not all, because Félicien Brut wishes to reconcile the still marginal place it occupies today in the world of classical music and its strong popular imprint.

Félicien Brut, an atypical career

This native of Auvergne has made the accordion fly off the shelves. Félicien discovered the instrument at a very young age and the popular music that has characterised it for so long: the musette. Following a solid training at the CNIMA Jacques Mornet, he animated numerous balls for years.
In 2009, he continued his studies at the Pôle Supérieur de Bordeaux-Aquitaine because, in the meantime, he had also developed a passion for classical music. Very quickly, he noticed a divide between the musicians of bal musette on the one hand, and classical accordionists and conservatory teachers on the other. Specialised in classical music, awarded with several international prizes, he founded the Trio Astoria, a group dedicated to Astor Piazzolla’s Nuevo Tango and released his first album Soledad del Escualo in 2016. It was then that the idea of a crazy wager came to his mind: to put together his own programme of classical music by associating it with the musette repertoire, a style that is particularly close to his heart.

Determining encounters and fortunate initiatives

Created in August 2017, Le Pari des Bretelles immediately met with incredible success. Surrounded by the Quatuor Hermès and the double bass player Edouard Macarez, Félicien Brut gave one concert after another and recorded a first record with this group which will be released in January 2019, during the Folle Journée de Nantes, on the Mirare label.
Félicien continues his approach by creating a collective to carry out audacious projects, surrounded by renowned soloists: Edouard Macarez, Renaud Guy-Rousseau, Julien Martineau, Romain Leleu and Thomas Leleu.
For Félicien Brut, each project becomes an opportunity to stimulate the emergence of contemporary creations, hence his strong working relationship with the composer Thibault Perrine. In April 2019, Félicien will perform his latest work: Souvenirs de Bal, a concerto for accordion and orchestra, for the first time with the Orchestre de Cannes.
From popular music to scholarly music, from improvisation to written works, from original pieces to the most unexpected transcriptions, Félicien Brut never ceases to defend the mixed and polymorphous character of the accordion.
He is undeniably the representative of his instrument in the new generation of classical musicians.

 


 

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