La Symphonie de Poche

Distribution

La Symphonie de Poche

Nicolas Simon, conductor 
2 violins
1 viola
1 cello
1 contrabass
1 harp
1 accordion
1 flute
2 clarinets
1 baritone saxophone
marimabe and drums

Les Lunaisiens

Arnaud Marzorati, baritone & conception 
Agathe Peyrat or Maylis de Villoutreys, soprano

Patrice Bréfort, Robin Melchior & Fabrice Trébuchon, arrangements

The ensemble Les Lunaisiens - specialising in the repertoire of historical and popular songs - and La Symphonie de Poche have devised a festive programme based on Boris Vian, an atypical character whose profound writings are always accompanied by a light, laughing tone.

This collaboration combining the singular sound of La Symphonie de Poche - accordion, harp, marimba, string quintet, transverse flute, clarinets, baritone saxhorn - and two "Lunaisian" singers (also narrators) aims to offer a musical, poetic and carefree show for young and old.

Boris Vian in 3 words, is that even possible? 

39 years lived with his feet to the floor, wearing out life, writing, playing, sharing, laughing and crying. A work so rich and protean that its author needs several identities (Sullivan, Bison Ravi...) to contain it. A brain in perpetual ebullition, a heart too fragile to bear it...

A shooting star, a dazzling genius.

Boris Vian was a great man of letters, jazz and song; a great lord, in short, an alchemist of language and poetry. He was a friend of Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Jacques Prévert, Raymond Queneau, Marcel Aymé, but also of Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Henri Salvador, Serge Gainsbourg, Jacques Higelin...

A daring promoter of post-war jazz, and a trumpet player himself

He wrote more than 400 songs in which his vocal work is funny, lyrical and contemporary.

Many of them are in our collective memory: Le Déserteur, La Java des bombes atomiques, La Complainte du Progrès, Fais-moi mal Johnny... and many others that have yet to be discovered.

Worthy successor of Alphonse Allais, Charles Cros, Aristide Bruant and all the chansonniers of the interwar period, from the Roaring Twenties to the Zazous, the great Boris knew the art of creating both "hits" and "pearls", surrounding himself with outstanding composers (Alain Goraguer, André Pop, Georges Delerue or Michel Legrand), satisfying lovers of literary games as well as aficionados of swing and rock.

La Symphonie de Poche and Les Lunaisiens offer a dive into the heart of the repertoire of an essential writer for those who want to fall in love with a French blues or a Gallic cha cha cha.

Make way for this Zazou of words! And "en avant la zizique", as in those beautiful years of the 50s and 60s, when the singers were accompanied by a real orchestra.

Maître Boris deserves this!