Thousand Shades of a Clown Pierre-Antoine Savoyat & Le Monde Merveilleux de Pepito

• 1 My Sorrow 06:09
• 2 Sorry 05:29
• 3 Keeping the Hope 08:12
• 4 Silent Cry 06:03
• 5 Life Race 06:38
• 6 Solitude 09:17
• 7 Can We Start to Love? Bastards! 08:18
• 8 Interlude with New Friends 01:59
• 9 Epic Short Story 06:22
• 10 In Good Company 05:29
• Total Runtime 01:03:56

Info for Thousand Shades of a Clown

Pierre-Antoine Savoyat couldn’t have found a better title for this second album! Thanks to his subtle way of contemplating and embellishing space and sound as a composer and as trumpet player, Thousand Shades of a Clown reveals personal and refreshing music with a kaleidoscopic imagination, effervescent with colours and emotions.

The veil of the clown’s mask gradually *fades away* to reveal the essence of his art: tenderness, generosity and humility. Much like a sleeping volcano, we enjoy a poetic quietness always bounded with a boiling energy underneath the surface.

Sometimes, Pierre-Antoine allows us to witness an unannounced eruption, before returning to a feeling of deep peace through the beauty of a masterful sound. His characteristic kindness probably hides a passionate fire and his humanist commitments in search of truth are never far away; perhaps even constituting the lifeblood of this work in which the stories of his life untangle and detangle. His desire to make the world a more wonderful place is expressed through the poetry of lyrical musical gestures, supported and propelled with intensity by his faithful accomplice, pianist Simon Groppe, a true chameleon of the keyboard. Their surprising and precise articulations are extended with equal finesse by Fil Caporali on double bass and Oscar Georges on drums, forming a perfectly harmonized quartet.

Between his solitude and the absurdity of the world, Savoyat has forged a masterful and compelling musical language, bringing with him guests with boundless imagination and crystal-clear ideas, true nuggets of pure gold like those old-time-alchemists dreamed of: Alexandra Grimal, with her majestic saxophone sound; Lucia Pires, with her light and dauntless flute; and Lynn Cassiers, captivating with her unique vocal and artistic universe.

Therefore, the album takes on a plural form in a counterpoint of shared stories, styles and times without ever losing the coherence of a common discourse. Pierre-Antoine weaves the whole together with the care of a goldsmith and through his fluid and mysterious intonations - where the ‘between’ naturally becomes the ‘inside’ - he blossoms into space like a tightrope walker defying the laws of gravity. Each piece of music has its own specific touch; the titles speak for themselves, sprinkled with melancholy and filled with warmth. Comforting like a refuge where you are always In good company — as in the lyrics of Lynn Cassiers — this album could even become one of those with which you live, breathe, and through which you open the windows of your inner universe to get closer to the light in a world that has become far too dark.

Pierre-Antoine Savoyat, trumpet
Le Monde Merveilleux de Pépito:
Alexandra Grimal, saxophone
Simon Groppe, piano
Fil Caporali, double bass
Lucia Pires, flute
Lynn Cassiers, vocals
Oscar Georges, drums

Pierre-Antoine Savoyat
From a music-lover family, Pierre-Antoine Savoyat blows his first notes on cornet at the Conservatoire de Villefranche-sur-Saône (France). Curious and passionate, he tries and dug a lot of different music styles (free improvisation, jazz, piano, trending music,...) during his teenage years. As a self-taught musician, he composes his first bars at only eight years old. After studying at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Chalon sur Saône, where he obtains a triple musical diploma in Jazz (Olivier Py, Fred Nardin...) Classical Trumpet (Eric Planté) and Orchestral Conducting, and he also follows Composition and Organ lessons.

Pierre-Antoine improves himself in the jazz department of the Koninklijke Conservatorium Brussel (Thomas Mayade, Jean-Paul Estievenart, Diederik Wissels, Stéphane Galland, Jeroen Van Herzeel...), where he got his Bachelor Degree with distinction and a Master Degree with Great Distinction (during his master he made an exchange-semester at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Lausanne, Switzerland, with Matthieu Michel and Emil Spanyi). He also follows some important masterclass for him, with Alexandra Grimal, Philippe Catherine, Steve Coleman, Wynton Marsalis and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra...

On the Jazz and Improvisational scene, Pierre-Antoine is one of the rising musicians of Brussels. Leader of his own quartet Le Monde Merveilleux de Pépito (featuring Simon Groppe on piano, Fil Caporali on doublebass, and Oscar Georges on drums), he is regularly resident of the Sounds Jazz Club (with his band or as the artistic director of the club's big band). He is also a member of Bruteleiir Collectiif , the French quartet Sornette or Q-Some Big Band (where he also composed). He has also a duo with the German pianist Moritz Preisler. As an appreciated sideman, we can listen Pierre-Antoine in different projects like Stéphane Galland & the Rhythm Hunters, Elsiris, Orson Claeys 5tet, Joseph Bijon 5tet, and take part in the artistic process as an arranger for the French singer La Sido, or the Belgian Colline. He plays also with some other great names in the European scene: Aka Moon, Django Bates, Denis Badault, Franck Tortillier, Jesse Van Ruller, Gerry Hemingway, Gard Nilssen, John Ruocco... As a no border musician, Pierre-Antoine collaborate with groups from other styles: Aksak Fanfär (Balkan music), Boogie Belgique (electro), Napsis (pop)... and made an appearance on the album Globetrotter Side B, by the Californian singer Wil Key.

Pierre-Antoine is also an very active composer, already well-known on the British Brass Band Scene, his Sinfonietta n°2 Quatre Impressions commissioned by the Hauts de France Brass Band conducted by Luc Vertommen was acclaimed at the European Brass Band Championship 2022 in Birmingham, and imposed as a test piece of the Belgian National Championship 2023. He also work with Brass Band Buizingen, the European Youth Brass Band (2016, conducted by Erik Janssen), the French Air Force and Space Brass Band, Sophie Binet-Budelot (solo Horn of Hauts de France Brass Band) or Christine Rolland (solo Euphonium of Paris Brass Band). But outside of this area, Pierre-Antoine work also for other formation like Wind Band (Isère Wind Orchestra conducted by Eric Villevière, Lyon Metropole Orchestra conducted by Yoann Combémorel...), symphonic orchestra (Victor Hugo's Young Orchestra of Besançon conducted by Jean-François Verdier). In 2022, Pierre-Antoine was a finalist in the European Composer Slam Competition, organized by Orchester Im Treppenhaus from Hannover, conducted by Thomas Posth.

He won the 6th Angelo Inglese Competition for Band Composition, with a very emotional work Farewell, Reflections from Crisantimi by G. Puccini.

Booklet for Thousand Shades of a Clown