François Cotinaud


François Cotinaud, is a French saxophonist and clarinetist, composer and soundpainter, born in Casablanca, 9 August 1956.

Biography

François Cotinaud studied music with Alan Silva, Cecil Taylor, Kenny Wheeler, or Steve Lacy.
He then created the label Musivi and leaded various experiences with Denis Colin, Bobby Few, Ramón López, Glenn Ferris, Enrico Rava, Pascale Labbé, Serge Adam and Sylvie Cohen, and recorded several albums with them.
In 1985, he created a quartet with Ramón López, Heriberto Paredes, Thierry Colson, later with Gilles Coronado. His solo CD "Loco Solo" around Luciano Berio offers his trend for contemporary music, and provocation. He performed with percussionist Pierre Charpy around Arthur Rimbaud's texts.
Has always seduced by oriental music, after a stint in the "Tierra del Fuego" group led by Pablo Nemirovsky, he showed in "Yo M'enamori" its Mediterranean sensibility through the prism of a contemporary re-reading, freed of tradition, with pianist Sylvie Cohen.
He stand apart from other jazz musicians of his generation in his formal research between text and music in various formations, the duet with cellist Deborah Walker, the ensemble Text'up, and the ensemble Luxus with Rainer Maria Rilke.
He played with the Spoumj, and founded the group "Algèbre" with Pierre Durand and Daniel Beaussier.
Involved in Soundpainting, composition language created by Walter Thompson, he founded in 2010 the ensemble Klangfarben, which makes performances at museums, theaters, recordings dedicated to Arnold Schoenberg and John Cage.
He had organized and produce the two first Soundpainting Festival in Paris, with 101 artists, major Soundpainting formations like : Spoumj, Klanfarben, Amalgammes, TSO, the Spang, Walter Thompson Orchestra, Batik, Helsinki Soundpainting Ensemble.
He recorded with Multilateral ensemble and the composer Benjamin de la Fuente, pieces based on open form, in the spirit of Earle Brown, melding written contemporary music and Soundpainting.

Pedagogy

Cofounder with A.Silva then director of an improvisation musik school in Paris from 1977 to 1987, François Cotinaud taught musical improvisation not only as an idiomatic jazz language, but also in a much freer environment, and leaded collectiv improvisation courses since 1978.
He teaches Soundpainting in Paris - first official class, Finland, and many towns in France.
He contributed to international Think Tanks of soundpainters.

Compositions

as leader or coleader