Benoît QUENTIN

Driven by his love for the energy of rock music, Benoit Quentin starts his musical practice in a self-taught way on the electric bass and began composing from the very first time he picked the instrument. His curiosity for other rhythmic and harmonic forms leads him quickly to learn to the double bass and to study jazz and composition (both instrumental and electroacoustic) in the Conservatoire de Lyon. Then he moved for two years in Buenos Aires, Argentina where he discovered the local music forms (folklore, tango) and perfected his double bass technique with Pablo Motta. There he had the opportunity to expand his musical boundaries by working with great contemporary improvised music masters as Tim Berne or Marilyn Crispell.
Back in France, he is now studying with Riccardo del Fra in the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he also worked with Uri Caine, Kurt Rosenwinkel, John Patitucci, … Among others, he is part of Mark Priore’s jazz Trio, of the free-jazz/rock crossover band Petit Matin, and of the folk-pop band Rouuge.
Through all these years he quickly grew a strong scenic, recording and creating experience, with a prolific activity in both fields of contemporary improvised music and amplified modern music (rock, pop, electronic). Benoit centres his work on a synthesis of these two musical worlds, by joining the written and the unexpected, the acoustic and the electric, the conceptual and the physical, around key elements as rhythm, energy and sonic textures. He is also a co-founder of L’Affect, a collective based in Lyon which since 2013 aim to offer an in-depth artistic proposal in a pop music context.

Photo credit: Maxime de Bollivier