Louis Sclavis

Louis Sclavis was born in 1953 in Lyons. He started learning to play the clarinet when he was ten years old with his neighbourhood's concert band and after a few years he continued his training at Lyons' music academy.

At the beginning of the 1970s, he played with theatre companies and dance troupes which fitted into the trends of the Living Theatre or of the Bread and Puppet Theatre and his musical inspiration came from Soft Machine, Sun Râ, or the Art Ensemble of Chicago.

He began his professional career in 1975, in particular with the Workshop of Lyon thanks to whom he worked with Colette Magny. In 1977, he participated in the creation of the music collective ARFI [Association looking for an imaginary folklore], played and recorded with the Marvelous Band, the Marmite Infernale, etc…

At the beginning of the 1980s, Louis Sclavis played with Henri Texier's quartet, with the Compagnie Lubat, with Chris Mac Gregor's Brotherhood of Breath, with Michel Portal, and with European musicians such as Tony Oxley, Evan Parker, Peter Brötzmann, Enrico Rava, Tomasz Stańko, etc…

In 1984, he started forming his own bands – trios, quartets, sextets – with whom he recorded for different labels such as Label bleu, Enja, FMP, and above all, ECM. At the same time, he composed for the cinema (Amos Gitaï, Bertrand Tavernier), for the theatre, for dance shows, worked with Jacques Bonnafé, Mathilde Monnier, Ernest Pignon Ernest, Guy Lequerrec, etc…

He was awarded the Django Reinhardt Prize, the Grand National Prize of Music, the SACEM [Society of authors, composers, and music publishers] Grand Prize, among others.

Photo credit: Luc Jennepin