Biography
Jean-Luc Guionnet remains a difficult artist to pin down. Based in Paris, he moves across music, visual arts, and cinema while concentrating chiefly on electro-acoustic composition yet maintaining an active role in free improvisation on alto and soprano saxophones, church organ, and piano. Tape pieces have linked him with Éric La Casa, Éric Cordier, and André Almuro, and his principal free-improvisation and jazz ensembles comprise Hubbub, Schams, Return of the New Thing, and the Joe Rosenberg quintet.
Before entering the fine arts he completed scientific training. He studied musique concrète with Iannis Xenakis and Michel Zbar while also pursuing philosophical aesthetics under Geneviève Clancy. His earliest pieces, dating from the late 1980s, arose chiefly through collaborations with filmmaker André Almuro, several of which later appeared on Ground Fault. A sustained working relationship with electro-acousticians Éric Cordier and Éric La Casa followed, yielding the “Afflux” series. At the same time he oversees the Ateliers de Création Radiophoniques broadcasts for France Culture. Because his activities span philosophy—he co-directed the review Terre des Signes from 1993 to 1996—painting—he exhibited between 1992 and 1997—and music, the press has tended to withhold full credibility, and the competing demands have limited wider notice.
The 1999 Leo Records release of an eponymous album by Dan Warburton’s free-jazz quartet Return of the New Thing brought Guionnet broader attention. Since then his improvisational work has moved steadily toward the outer edges of experimental practice. Membership in the French-Swiss ensemble Hubbub and the duo with guitarist Olivier Benoit documented on &Un (2002) both align with the Berlin reductionist approach.
Before entering the fine arts he completed scientific training. He studied musique concrète with Iannis Xenakis and Michel Zbar while also pursuing philosophical aesthetics under Geneviève Clancy. His earliest pieces, dating from the late 1980s, arose chiefly through collaborations with filmmaker André Almuro, several of which later appeared on Ground Fault. A sustained working relationship with electro-acousticians Éric Cordier and Éric La Casa followed, yielding the “Afflux” series. At the same time he oversees the Ateliers de Création Radiophoniques broadcasts for France Culture. Because his activities span philosophy—he co-directed the review Terre des Signes from 1993 to 1996—painting—he exhibited between 1992 and 1997—and music, the press has tended to withhold full credibility, and the competing demands have limited wider notice.
The 1999 Leo Records release of an eponymous album by Dan Warburton’s free-jazz quartet Return of the New Thing brought Guionnet broader attention. Since then his improvisational work has moved steadily toward the outer edges of experimental practice. Membership in the French-Swiss ensemble Hubbub and the duo with guitarist Olivier Benoit documented on &Un (2002) both align with the Berlin reductionist approach.
Albums
Singles
Live
