Syrinx

Growing up, Jean Boucault and Johnny Rasse were neighbours in a village near the Baie de Somme. They soon discovered they had a talent for imitating bird calls. They honed their skills to shine in bird song competitions, notably the most famous in Abbeville. Bird singers Jean Boucault and Johnny Rasse are recognised as the greatest imitators of bird song without bird calls. 

Their imitation technique echoes primitive singing techniques and uses only breath-voice, diphony, aspirated voice, trilled singing, high-frequency whistling, drone whistling and percussive singing. They offer a repertoire of thousands of bird sounds from all five continents. 

Thanks to their talent, the Chanteurs d'oiseaux have taken part in radio and television programmes, and in the closing night of the Namur Animal Festival.

In 2006, the director of the Festival des Forêts in Compiègne offered them a concert with the pianist-composer-improviser Jean-François Zygel. With Zygel, they took part in Cabaret Classique on France Musique, an improvisation on Murnau's film Nosferatu and the programme Vers le ciel.

This was to be the start of a long musical journey, which would see them rub shoulders with a host of musicians from the classical, jazz and traditional music worlds. 
In 2016, they were guests at La Folle Journée de Nantes. They have collaborated on artistic projects with artists such as Pierre Hamon, François Salque, Geneviève Laurenceau, Lidija Bizjak and Vincent Peirani, Yannick Jaulin and Bertrand Belin.
Since then, they have formed the collective ‘Les Chanteurs d'Oiseaux’, with the aim of using birdsong, a raw and original material, and mixing it with all forms of living art: music, theatre, dance and street art, in order to transcend it.

In May 2023, they published their best-selling book ‘Chanteurs d'oiseaux’, published by Les Arènes.

June 2024