22th International Guitar Festival Fribourg
Mai 1st - 9, 2009

La Spirale

Les Palabres Bleues

Switzerland

Vincent Zanetti (Djembé, percussions, programming, guitar, African strings)

Vincent Zanetti is a multi-instrumentalist as well as a percussionist specialised in the accompaniment of Western African dances. After having studied with some of the most famous traditional percussion masters, he became an arranger and artistic director for the Malian musical ensemble Soungalo Coulibaly from 1993 to 2004. He is also the founder of mixed race combo Djinn Djow (encouragement prize of Canton Wallis in 2002), and has performed with a number of prestigious Western African artists (Youssou N'Dour, Boubacar “Kar Kar„ Traoré, Alioune Baye Der...), while remaining faithful to other repertoires, especially those of Wallis-born singer Pascal Rinaldi.

A collector and a researcher, artistic director of the Delémont Notes d'équinoxe festival and producer of Ecoute des mondes, a weekly radio programme devoted to traditional music from all over the world broadcasted by Radio Suisse Romande / Espace 2, his articles and his discography (he is the winner of several Chocs awarded by the Monde de la Musique), Zanetti is a key figure of the world music scene in Europe.

Jean-Philippe Zwahlen (Guitars, hajouj)

A fixture of the Swiss jazz scene since 1986, Jean-Philippe Zwahlen has toured Europe, Western Africa, Russia, the Baltic states, South America, Canada and the Czech Republic alongside Maurice Magnoni, Matthieu Michel, Claudio Pontiggia, Erik Truffaz, Ohad Talmor, Patrick Müller, Pierre-Luc Vallet, as well as with bands such as Palomar, ZEM, Zounds, Podjama and Saïd.

This prodigious activity does not hinder him in personal projects: two Swiss tours (1999 and 2001) and one album with 3 Gnawa musicians from Marrakech and the Podjama trio, not to mention a carte blanche at the Fribourg International Guitar Festival in 2000. A further carte blanche at the AMR with the Souk El Khemis quintet sparked off the beginning of his work with computers and real-time interaction: “Dissection d'un Cri„ at the Théâtre Arsenic in Lausanne (presentation at the Swiss Cultural Center in Paris in February 2003) and “Noisic in Motion / Spatialised Suite for Musicians, Loudspeakers and Sometimes Dark Rooms„ commissioned by Pro Helvetia, and also performed at the Théâtre Arsenic in Lausanne.

Yannick Barman (Trumpet)

Yannick Barman studied the trumpet and counterpoint, graduating in 1995. In 1996, he was awarded the first prize in virtuosity at the Lausanne Conservatoire.

The following year, he left Switzerland for Paris to perfect his skills with Eric Aubier at the CNR in Rueil-Malmaison. There, he obtained a first prize as a trumpet player in 1997 and a prize of excellence in 1998. During this time, he began teaching himself jazz and recorded a first CD, “Rorqual Bleu„ with Cyril Regamey, Popol Lavanchy and a brass section. In the autumn of 1998, he left for New York where he set up his quintet with Ohad Talmor, Jim Hershman, Deidre Rodman and Christophe Schweizer. In 2002, he created Kiku with drummer Regamey, embarking on a series of recordings and worldwide tours as a soloist, but also as a quartet, a quintet or a septet.

Cyril Regamey (Drums, percussions)

Having graduated with highest honors from the Lausanne Jazz School, Cyril Regamey won the first prize in virtuosity with congratulations of the Jury at the Lausanne Conservatoire and took part in widely diverse ensembles such as the Lausanne and Geneva Chamber Orchestras, the Swiss Youth Symphony Orchestra, the Geneva International Percussions Center, Piano Seven, the Lausanne Big Band, Kiku, Triolisme…

Winner of the Prix Leenard in 2003, the 1st prize at the De Reding Improvisation Contest in 2005, not to mention innumerable tours and concerts in Europe and all over the world, Cyril Regamey now teaches drums at the Music School of Pully.

Laurent Bruttin (Clarinettes)

Laurent Bruttin studied at the Geneva Conservatoire and obtained a unanimous 1st prize of the Jury at the Paris Conservatoire in 2002. Active in the field of contemporary music, he regularly performs with ensembles such as the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain (NEC) or the Contrechamps ensemble. An aficionado of improvised music, he is member of several groups, amongst which Toolbox, Ortolan, the Collectif Rue du Nord and the Kiku quartet. Together with double-bassist Dragos Tara, pianist-clarinettist Benoît Moreau and cellist Zeno Gabaglio, he created the Silence ensemble, which performs and composes music for silent movies (the ensemble has performed, amongst others, in Berlin, Milan and Varese). He collaborates on a regular basis with the Da Motus dance company, for whom he has composed several original musical scores.