Marion Rampal, Quatuor Manfred & Raphaël Imbert
Biography Marion Rampal, Quatuor Manfred & Raphaël Imbert
Marion Rampal
French Singer and songwriter Marion Rampal entwines memory and invention, words and melodies, folkloric musics and classical occidental roots.
Born in 1980 in Marseille, she studied music and singing according to the fanciful gifts of life: A mother who invented lulabies à la Michel Legrand. A grandfather who played all Nat King Cole in F on the piano. A few flute lessons (she is not in any way related to Jean-Pierre Rampal). Her fabulous high school choir which toured Europe…
Adolescent she started scribling song books, writting in English as she was pationate with Patti Smith, Jim Morrison, Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen… She's been following her Rock & Folk loves since 1998, as the singer of Wesh Wesh first, and with the duo We Used to Have a Band after that.
Her encounter with Raphaël Imbert et his Compagnie Nine Spirit was the start of a long and fecund collaboration: his record label published her first album, Own Virago, in 2009. In 2011 she write the lyrics and sings on Perrine Mansuy's Vertigo Songs. In 2012 she joins the Attica Blues Big Bang and Archie Shepp's Quintes. Shortly after that she records Heavens with Raphael Imbert, followed by Music Is My Home.
Poetic explorations into the embodiments of the Blues, which she purshued in New York and in Louisiana, led her to write and compose Main Blue, with Anne Paceo and Pierre-Frangois Blanchard. This recording was published internationally by e-motive records in 2016.
Marion Rampal also wanders the classical repertoire in search of personal standards. The duo Lost Art Song with pianist Pierre-Frangois Blanchard, gives faithfully free interpretations of some of Shubert's lieder, and associates melodies by Debussy, Fauré, with classics of French popular music of the 20th century. In the same spirit, she is regularly participating to Arièle Butaux' Salon Idéal. With the Manfred Quartet she sings music from Berlin's "decadent" masters of the 30's. A recording of this project, *Bye Bye Berlin!", will be published in 2018 by Harmonia Mundi.
She also enjoys lending her words to other voices, and thus wrote lyrics for singer Virginie Teychené, for Anne Pacéo (in Circles, sung by Leila Martial), and for Raphaël Imabert (Music is my Home, vocals by Leyla McCalla, Alabama Slim and Big Ron Hunter)
