Louise Jallu
Origin: France
Bandoneon virtuoso and composer Louise Jallu is one of those musicians who transcend borders.
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new album 'Jeu'
About us
Jazz, classical, contemporary, chanson – Louise Jallu playfully defies labels with her aesthetic approach to composition, without ever completely severing the narrative thread that links her to the spirit of traditional tango. Schumann, Fritz Kreisler, Georges Brassens, Bach, Wozzeck and even Ravel are thus evoked in a whirlwind of sound from which emerges a joy in playing, both in the singular sense of the evocative and in the plural sense of the collective.
One is left speechless, ears wide open.
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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Line-up: Louise Jallu – bandoneon, Karsten Hochapfel – guitar, Grégoire Letouvet – piano, Fender Rhodes, Alexandre Perrot – double bass
Following her first two albums devoted to tango, bandoneonist Louise Jallu now tackles Schumann, Schönberg, Bach, Ravel and even Georges Brassens on her latest album, ‘Jeu’.
Just as she did with Piazzolla, on her latest album *Jeu* Louise Jallu and her bandoneon tackle the greats with confidence, ranging from classical composers (Schumann, Berg) to jazz, via more popular works (Ravel’s *Boléro*, Brassens)…
Louise’s highly personal arrangements sound like popular compositions.
There is passion and depth in her music, lament and hope, strength and tenderness.
A interplay of light and shade between folk traditions and cultural heritage.
A performance rooted as much in intuition as in scholarship.
A bold assertion of freedom, breaking free from influential figures to offer a wholly different kind of modernity and take us… elsewhere!
Music that transcends styles, borders and generations, both here and elsewhere.
Line-up: Louise Jallu – bandoneon, Karsten Hochapfel – guitar, Grégoire Letouvet – piano, Fender Rhodes, Alexandre Perrot – double bass
Louise Jallu does not aim to reproduce Astor Piazzolla’s (1921–1992) music to the letter, but rather to preserve its spirit and use it as a starting point for explorations that are as daring as they are impossible to pigeonhole into a single genre (tango, jazz, contemporary). This nuance is apparent from the very composition of the instrumental ensemble. Whilst the Argentine maestro had a quintet, the young French musician performs with a quartet. Their approach to the bandoneon also sets them apart. Whilst the ‘tiger’ Piazzolla makes his bellows roar, the ‘panther’ Jallu is content to let it breathe, gently (‘Soledad’) or with sensuality (‘Tanguedia’). Far from being limited to a simple arrangement, the work on the scores – a collaboration between the bandoneonist and the composer Bernard Cavanna – bears witness to a genuine creative endeavour. The extensions are numerous and of unexpected richness. For example, in the world-famous ‘Libertango’, in which the piano of the alchemist Gustavo Beytelmann joins the siren-like sound of an Edgard Varèse, or when another hit, ‘Oblivion’ (featuring Médéric Collignon’s ever-changing trumpet), concludes with a polyphony of music boxes. The revolution spearheaded by Astor Piazzolla led him to the Tango Nuevo; the one spearheaded by Louise Jallu results in Piazzolla Nuevo. Pierre Gervasoni, Le Monde
Line-up: Louise Jallu - bandonéon + Fiona Mato - piano + a string quartet
In recent years, Louise Jallu has established herself as one of the most distinctive figures on the European music scene. Her bandoneon is not merely an instrument; it is a constantly expanding realm, a space where repertoires, memories and imaginations converge. In it, she combines virtuosity with audacity, rigour with the unexpected, and high standards with a deeply infectious joy.
From the most intimate venues to the biggest international stages, from the most coveted festivals to the most unlikely venues, she forges ahead without ever yielding to convention. She claims no allegiance other than to music itself, in its most vibrant, free and generous form.
Today, Louise Jallu takes on the great classical repertoire with a view to reinterpreting it. Not to dust it off — it has no need of that — but to set it in motion once more, restoring its power to surprise, its touch of audacity and its original energy.
For this venture, she is joined by the Hanson Quartet, one of the most inspired ensembles of their generation, and the talented pianist Fiona Mato.
Together, they reinvent famous and lesser-known works, from Johann Sebastian Bach to Maurice Ravel, and bring them into dialogue with Louise Jallu’s latest compositions, as well as a tribute to Michel Portal, a towering musician without boundaries and an iconic figure in music free from aesthetic dogmas, with whom Louise shared the stage during the final years of his life. Classical music, jazz, new compositions, improvisation: labels slip over her music without ever quite capturing it. Louise Jallu belongs to that rare category of artists who assert a unique voice and bring together audiences from all walks of life, from novices to the most discerning music lovers. More than just a concert, it is a celebration of movement, freedom and the fusion of imaginations. Music that is constantly reinventing itself, brought to life by artists who reject compartmentalisation and turn every encounter into a truly poetic, committed and slightly iconoclastic adventure – almost an artistic manifesto.
An artist who creates her own language and conveys it with infectious freedom.
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