Jean-Pierre Drouet

JEAN-PIERRE DROUET

Jean-Pierre Drouet began studying  classicla music in Bordeaux before moving on Paris, where he earned his first percussion prize in 1958. He knew, however, that a « classic » career was not to his taste, and his meeting with Luciano Berio was a decisive factor in the direction his musical life was to take. Together they wrote « Circles » for singer Cathy Berberian, and toured the United States. Drouet played with Pierre Boulez and performed numerous specially written works for Barraqué, Stockhausen, Kagel, Xenakis and others. At the same time, he was playing with André Hoeir’s Jazz Groupe de Paris and accompanying, among others, Edith Piaf, Gilbert Becaud, Jeanne Moreau and Bobby Lapointe. In the late 1960’s, with Michel Portal, Vinko Globokar and Carlos Roque Alsina, he founded the New Phonic Art ensemble, which for the next fifteen years provided him with a framework for pure, emotionally powerful improvisation.
Insatiably curious, he also worked on the traditionnal rhythms of the zarb and the tabla ; on the the new electroacoustic  possibilities ; on music theatre, with Aperghis, Jean-Louis Barrault, Ensemble Aleph, Ars Nova and others ; on dance with, for example, Violetta Farber and Jean-Claude Gallotta ; with Claudia Brahem’s music  machines, and with Bartabas’s horses. With the Ars Nova ensemble he prepared a new version of Luciano Berio’s « Laborintus II » in 2003 and performed Claude Barthélémy’s « Soleils Fondus » at the Cité de la Musique in Paris in 2004.

Source : Press book – Biennale 2006

Updating : March 2012