ESKENAZY David (France)
David ESKENAZY (France)
David Eskenazy is a French musician, born in 1977, in Normandy.
At the age of twelve, he was introduced to the building blocks of what would become the essential components of his musical identity: voice, guitar, harmony, composing and arranging, all of which, he soon tried and tested with his first experiences playing in a group.He then took up the upright bass and the electric bass, which he played accompanying jazz musicians such as Jean René Dalerci, Jérôme Petitgirard, Stéphane Dumont and Daniel Thierry, in Normandy. Awestruck by these first role models, David discovered the wealth of harmonic and rhythmic possibilities that jazz offers. At the same time, David developed a passion for Brazilian music, and hence, flirting with bossa nova, he has come across a host of new artists and continued to explore the subtleties of this environment with great enthusiasm.
In 1999 David moved to Montpellier, a town in Southern France, where he created Samba So, a solo singing tour of Música Popular Brasileira, or MPB, literally « Brazilian Popular Music » and improvisation (album retrato em branco e preto).
His music-creation projects have led him to work with many recognised artists, such as Michel Bismuth, Frederic Tari, the Trio Zéphyr, Pascal Corriu, Véronique Lherme, Fred Breton, the duo Patrice Soletti/Aurélien Besnard, Damien Fadat, Dominique Rieux, Tony Amourou, Laurent Audino, Oliver Roman Garcia, Pierre Leydier, Jacques Lyprendi and François-Xavier Corsi.
In these projects, David likes to fuse the highly contrasting aesthetic worlds of afro-latin music, jazz and the outright contemporary.Among his creations are La suite Berskn (The Berskn Suite), an original composition written for ten musicians, produced at La Vista, Montpellier in 2003; the project Salsamba, an arrangement of Brazilian standards for a Cuban-style orchestra; several chamber music pieces for a trio, a string quartet, guitar and flute; Frontières Liquides (Liquid Boundries), a contemporary improvisation for a string quartet and a duo (Aurélien Besnard/ Patrice Soletti, from the record label Rude Awakening) performed several times, notably at the classical music festival Les Nuits de Sainte Anne, in Montpellier.
In March 2006, David founded the Poésismic Trio, an ʻunleashedʼ jazz trio flavoured with Cuban and Brazilian influences. Surrounded by Gustavo Ovalles (percussion) percussionist disciple of the great pianist Omar Sosa, and Fred Breton (keyboards), David recorded the album Sors Par Là! (Letʼs go that way!), and was authorof all compositions.
His latest work is a contemporary piece entitled Ballet Pour 12 Cors (Ballet For Twelve Horns), commissioned by Le Festival Montpellier Quartiers Libres, premiered at Le Cloître des Ursulines, Centre Chorégraphique National, Montpellier, in October 2007. Many other projects are in progress.
Alongside his creations, David has developed his teaching activities around a variety of vocal topics (improvisation, rhythm and voice, the language of melodic improvisation, Circle songs etc.). The confluence of these wide-ranging projects has developed his character as a stage musician and stimulated his pursuit of a hybrid aesthetic as a composer and arranger. Davidʼs research and musical experience are the primary ingredients of his classes.
He completed his intense years of self-instruction by working with Isabelle Chovallon on writing music, and studying composition with Jean-Jacques de Tucci and Philippe Schoeller.
He moved to Montpellier in 1999. He has since signed many creations in the areas of jazz, contemporary classical and Brazilian music.