Umlaut

Umlaut is a musician’s collective created in 2004 in Stockholm, whose two cousin structures opened in 2009 in Berlin and Paris. The parisian collective is created by the musicians : Pierre-Antoine Badaroux, Sébastien Beliah, Antonin Gerbal, Joel Grip (then in Berlin), Eve Risser, and Joris Rühl, who were joined in 2013 by the composer Karl Naegelen, and in 2019 by the musician Amaryllis Billet. Umlaut gathers around the notion of “Transformation of sound”, artists animated by the desire to defend together the creative musics of today, putting in play the improvisation, the new forms of writing and the meeting of different musical idioms. They show a commitment to today’s musical creation, rich by the heritage of jazz, contemporary music and improvised music.

Their collaborations, numerous and varied, intervene as much on the artistic as on the professional level and allow Umlaut to assert its singular aesthetic identity beyond their respective borders.
The musical proposals of the artists, whether they are in the programming, composition, direction, collective creation, improvisation or interpretation, are part of an original aesthetic because unclassifiable, multiple and surprising. They allow the discovery of music that is too rarely defended, and invite reflection on creation, improvisation, writing and knocking through.
The activities of the collective are organized around 4 axes:
– Artistic creation : production and diffusion of the various artistic projects of the members of the collective
– Programming : the Umlaut festival presents a program that gives prominence to today’s creative music while encouraging the crossing of different aesthetics.
– Label : the label Umlaut Records has more than 70 references in its catalog, the result of a real emulation.
– Research and transmission : the question of the articulation between writing and improvisation is at the heart of the work of the musicians of the Umlaut collective, and their answers prove to be multiple and innovative.