Sophie Agnel
https://sophieagnel.bandcamp.com/album/capsizing-moments – Capsizing Moments by Sophie Agnel (piano) 2009
https://sophieagnel.bandcamp.com/album/reps – Reps by Sophie Agnel (piano) and Oliver Benoit (guitar) 2011
https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/artists/sophie-agnel/
https://www.sophieagnel.net/projets
Equipped with a solid classical training and after having for a time been closely interested in modern jazz, Sophie Agnel, at the turn of the 90s, gradually engaged in the shifting and deliciously uncertain terrain of improvisation. free, fascinated by the expressive power of some great keyboard heretics like Keith Tippett, Fred Van Hove or Christine Wodrascka.
Reworking through the prism of improvised music the prepared piano techniques imagined by John Cage in the field of contemporary music, Sophie Agnel will then apply herself to “introducing the prosaism of the contemporary world into the very belly of Western musical refinement” and transforming his instrument into a sort of “extensive prep-piano” or “extended piano” thus laying the foundations of a radically materialist personal universe, by turns lyrical, abstract and sensualist.
Moving from the demanding solo exercise to multiple in situ encounters with the greatest masters of contemporary improvisation (Michel Doneda, Daunik Lazro, Olivier Benoît, Catherine Jauniaux, ErikM, Roger Turner, Phil Minton, John Butcher, Jean François Pauvros , Thurston Moore), the pianist will also gradually venture into these border areas where genres blur.
She has thus created some shows for all audiences (such as “Le Piano – Marteau” featuring sonic space through a subtle play of mirrors); collaborated with choreographer Josef Nadj (“etc. etc.”); or the theatrical adaptation of “Testimony” by Charles Reznikov directed by Henri Jules Julien, created the show “Now∞”, piano-video duo with the videographer Lionel Palun performed on stage with the poets Nicolas Tardy, Christophe Marchand Kiss, Christiane Veschambre…
Attracted by concrete and electro-acoustic music as well as by the phenomena of spatialization of sound, Sophie Agnel has also recently designed with the help of the National Center for Musical Creation of Albi – Tarn (GMEA) and the luthier Laurent Paquier , an experimental electro-acoustic instrument, the “nOpianO /cordophone”, thus opening up new sonic horizons.
In 2014, she joined the National Jazz Orchestra (ONJ) under the direction of Olivier Benoît for 4 years.