Sanseverino

Born in 1962 on French soil to a family of Italian immigrant lineage, Stephane Sansévérino gained broad travel exposure in childhood through his father’s professional commitments. These journeys introduced him to international performers and prompted a decisive turn toward performance by age twenty. He first pursued theater, devoting several years to comic-acting study while also picking up guitar and banjo. He founded his own troupe and concentrated on street performance, all while immersed in the alternative-rock currents that emerged in the mid-1980s. Concurrently he played in multiple bands, sustaining a wide range of musical and theatrical projects. The convergence of these interests produced Les Voleurs de Poules, an acoustic duo that fused Eastern European Gypsy styles with French chansons from the 1950s. After extensive touring the pair issued its first album, Tu Sens les Poivrons, in 1995. Four years later the duo dissolved, freeing Sansévérino to spend the next two years composing and recording his solo debut, Le Tango des Gens, which attained gold certification upon release in 2001. Continued intensive touring earned him the Victorie de la Musique Award for Best Breakthrough Live Act of the Year in 2003. His second album, Les Senagalaises, earned him the sobriquet “Monsieur Swing.” In keeping with that direction, Exactement (2006) became his first project to employ a full big band, a clear shift from the three-to-five-musician groups he had used previously. December 2006 found him back on tour, this time fronting his twenty-piece big band.