Refuge under the tree - Kiaat Ensemble
Sun, 7 Feb 2027Afternoon
About this event
Kiaat Ensemble is a musical group that transcends geographical and stylistic boundaries, as a natural continuation of Ralph Smit’s studies with the “wizard musician” Smiles Mandla Makama. Their music, nourished by the hypnotic rhythms of the chromatic kalimba, fuses modal jazz sounds, South African influences, and the spiritual energy of a jazz that is both rooted and far-reaching.
Organized by: ENSEMBLE TELEMAQUE
Since its founding in Marseille in 1994, ensemble Télémaque has devoted itself to creating and presenting the works of our time. Georges Boeuf, Régis Campo, and Pierre-Adrien Charpy, composers from the south, as well as Thierry Machuel, Jean-Luc Hervé, Tatiana Catanzaro, François Narboni, Kasia Glowicka, Bernard Cavanna, Ivan Fedele, Sarah Lianne Lewis, Bekah Simms, Richard Baker, James Callahan, Lynn Plowman… receive commissions from the ensemble, which champions the greatest possible aesthetic openness.
In the 2000s, under the impetus of Raoul Lay, the Télémaque music company developed original collaborations with other performing arts. Olivier Py, Bernard Kudlak (cirque Plume), Catherine Marnas, Nathalie Pernette, and Frédéric Flamand are among Télémaque’s artistic partners, working with the music of Mauricio Kagel, Steve Reich, and Raoul Lay himself.
The ensemble has always performed in concert at France’s and the world’s most innovative music venues and events: Festival d’Ile de France, Festival Présences at Radio-France, Cité de la Musique de Paris, Auditorium National de Madrid, Gaudeamus Music Week in Amsterdam, Festival Enescu in Bucharest, Salle Flagey in Brussels, Biennale de Venise, New Music Week in Shanghai, CCK in Buenos Aires, Spring Festival in Malta… Over the past ten years, Télémaque has performed in more than 15 countries.
Alongside its work in creation, Télémaque has made it its mission to spark curiosity and bring all forms of contemporary music to listeners everywhere. To this end, it has undertaken specific work for young audiences, aimed at children as spectators (Nokto, La mort Marraine, La revue de Cuisine), participants and singers (La jeune fille aux mains d’argent, King Kong), and/or percussionists (Nous d’ici-bas).
After serving in 2011 as the lead ensemble in the ECO (European Contemporary Orchestra) project, an acoustic and electric ensemble of 33 musicians dedicated to new work, Télémaque joined the Pôle Instrumental Contemporain (PIC) in 2013 and embarked on a local project that earned it the Atelier de Fabrique artistique label, awarded in 2016 by the Ministry of Culture.
In 2016, in co-production with around fifteen regional organizations, the company organized a special event called Grandes musiques pour petites oreilles. The success of the first two editions led to the launch in 2019 of Tous en sons, the first national youth music festival, now independent but still supported by Télémaque, which remains a key partner.
Since 2018, Télémaque and Raoul Lay have led the October Lab project, an international platform for musical creation and exchange. From 2019 onward, the ensemble has traveled to perform in Shangaï, Nanning, and soon Montréal, Winnipeg, Cardiff…
In 2021 and 2022, during the lockdown period, Télémaque created the Mondes Sonores en Territoire program, supported by the Centre National de la Musique. It was in this context that “Trois Corolles,” a work by Pierre-Adrien Charpy, was created for students at eight conservatories in Région Sud across three departments, involving more than two hundred and fifty participants, including students, teachers, and Télémaque professionals.
