Titi Robin
Thierry "Titi" Robin is a French composer and improviser. His style combines elements from the Mediterranean world including Romani, oriental and European cultures. He plays guitar, buzuq, mandolin and ’oud.
Biography
Artistic beginnings
Titi Robin, early in his career, performed at Arab and Romani community festivals that gave him the opportunity to test his musical approach. The musicians accompanying him are almost exclusively from minority groups.Beginnings
In 1984 he appeared in duet with Hameed Khan, an Indian tabla player originally from Jaipur. In 1987, he founded the "Johnny Michto" band, which combined Moroccan Berber rhythm with the electric buzuq, bass,clarinets and bagpipes. Although influenced by flamenco, mainly in its voice and poetic form, he has never directly performed it, preferring to exchange ideas with the artists of this musical form.
''Les Trois Frères''
Titi Robin while still with Hameed Khan, a duet which highlights melodic and rhythmic improvisational duels, meets Brittany singer, Érik Marchand, who incarnates in his opinion the rich traditional popular culture of Titi Robin's own home region. Together they develop a repertoire enlisting quarter-tones modes, Eastern modal improvisation based on taqsîm, and Gwerz, the ancient monophonic lamentation which the singer along with Yann fanch Kemener is at the time one of the heirs. Ocora Radio France commissioned a recording – "An Henchou Treuz" – which won the Grand Prix de l'Académie Charles Cros, a fitting beginning of the collaboration of the two duos that will eventually form the "Trio Érik Marchand", most of the repertoire composed and arranged by Titi Robin. This out of the ordinary formation – a Brittany singer, an Arabic lute player and an Indian tablâ specialist – will travel internationally: from the Womad festivals to stages specialized in contemporary music, passing by the Théâtre de la Ville in Paris, Quartz in Brest, not to mention the jazz venues who acclaim their innovative approach to improvisation. Their international tours take them from Quebec City to Houston, from Marrakesh to Birzeit. The first album under the name of "Trio Érik Marchand" appeared in 1991: An Tri Breur . In the early 2000, the Trio Érik Marchand performed periodically, with Keyvan Chemirani at the percussions.''Gitans''
This formation revealed Titi Robin mainly as an oudist.A disc released in January 1993 greatly clarified the world of the musician of the buzuq and guitar: The artist dedicates "Gitans" in homage to the Romani community from whom he learned so much.
It is a mosaic of encounters between Titi Robin's favourite artists, who represent different branches of the family, from North India to Andalusia, and to the Balkans, from which he draws his personal musical vision.
The repertoire mainly consists of original compositions and does not reproduce any typical gypsy style. He believes that the best tribute is to create something new and personal but which better demonstrates paradoxically the rich source honored here.
Guest musicians include the following: Gulabi Sapera, Bruno el Gitano, Mambo Saadna, Paco el Lobo, François Castiello, Hameed Khan Francis Alfred Moerman, Abdelkrim Sami, Bernard Subert. This release and the musical cooperation it required will attract a wide audience, bringing together both savvy aficionados and lovers of Mediterranean music. "Gitans" will tour in Japan, at the Hollywood Bowl and from South Africa up to the major European world music festivals. The theme "Petite mer", certainly the best known of the composer, comes from the disc.
''Le Regard Nu''
At the beginning of 1996, this group in a collective adventure, makes a radical thrust, coming out with an introspective instrumental recording, "Le Regard Nu" based on modal improvisation, as a result of a year of experimental research. Titi Robin was inspired by poses of female models, as in painting or sculpture, to nourish his musical improvisations on the solo ‘oud and buzuq. It is a series of musical tableaux. In the booklet, he cites Modigliani : “To work, I need a living being in front of me”. He is strongly inspired in his work by Jean-Pierre Montier's L’art sans l’art, which deals with the aesthetic vision of the photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. The personality of the Iraqi oud player Munir Bashir, who according to Titi Robin "sculpts" silence and lets the present moment inhabit his improvisations, is very much present in the spirit of the musician's work. Starting from a specific traditional oriental technique, taqsîm, he approaches it more from a philosophical than a formal point of view resulting in an original iconoclastic style. In the same way American jazz has influenced improvisers from other cultures who than take there distance from the original model, Titi Robin has done the same with this aesthetic tradition.''Payo Michto'' & ''Kali Gadji''
Tours of Gitans continue, as witnessed by the live album Payo Michto in 1997. The voices are those of Saadna brothers from the "Rumberos Catalans" living in the district Saint Jacques in Perpignan and Andalusian flamenco singer Paco el Lobo. The rhythmic style of Catalan rumba is important to Titi Robin, it crosses the sound of his Romani guitar compass with nylon-string guitars. This is one of the emblematic colors of his universe. Here, we also listen to Brittany bagpiper Bernard Subert. Abdelkrim Sami is at the percussions and Gulabi Sapera brings her Rajasthani Romani dance. In parallel, Titi Robin wants to find a way of forging links with contemporary Western popular music, which leads to a new formation, orchestrating the saxophone, drums and bass. It will be in Kali Gadji that the Romani and Oriental influences, always present, mingle with the French texts as well as with the polyrhythms of West Africa. From Morocco to Mali, passing by Mauritania, Titi Robin feels that history has linked these cultures to the great Mediterranean civilization. Musicians that are invited are Renaud Pion, Abdelkrim Sami, Farid "Roberto" Saadna, Jorge "Negrito" Trasante, Gabi Levasseur, Alain Genty and Bernard Subert. The orchestra has toured for many years in parallel with "Gitans" but did not have the same response from the public and critics.''Un Ciel de Cuivre''
Ciel de Cuivre, released in 2000 is the album the artist considers the one that represents the diversity of his musical world the best. "I don’t know any other art school than the street and pleasure, because no one taught me how to speak this language but men and women crossed on my road and far from being all musicians. There is truth in the beauty of the deaf world, and I polished a mirror which may reflect this light: this gesture is the meaning of my music. As the saying Qawwal “thousands of times, I plunged myself into the river with no bottom but it is in a hole that I found the precious pearl.“ The real journey is inside. Music feeds itself in that inner source, deep in the heart, as the star, because there is no better elsewhere, or golden age in the past. Every day, under a sky of copper, we hit the road, a little more digging to find the bread, salt and the gold of the deep song." Titi Robin. Fifteen musicians are invited such as Farid "Roberto" Saadna, Gulabi Sapera, Keyvan Chemirani, François Laizeau, Renaud Pion, Negrito Trasante, Francis-Alfred Moerman. A sextet toured continuously offering themes from this disc mixed with older compositions. The Titi Robin Trio drawing across exclusively Titi’s instrumental repertoire also produce a lot abroad, especially in the Middle East.Titi Robin and Gulabi Sapera
Since 1992, Titi Robin regularly worked with Gulabi Sapera to whom he dedicated a book "Gulabi Sapera, danseuse Gitane du Rajasthan". She tells her legendary life in Rajasthan, a nomad young lady who goes from the miserable life of snake charmers camps to national and then international recognition. She is frequently invited to Titi's shows and the song Pundela from the disc "Gitans" just like the song "La rose de Jaipur" from the album "Ciel de cuivre", shows how much emotion there is between the two artists when they meet.In 2002, they released an album co-signed Rakhî dedicated to the marriage of their respective universe, based on songs from the Kalbeliya’s caste or the Marwari repertoire from the Thar desert. "Her choreography and Titi Robin's compositions gather round a show Jivula which sees the day in September 2002, and is announced on many French and international scenes, enjoying a light show of Pascale Paillard. In 2006, the DVD Jivula and CD Anita! are released, including several documentary films by Sergio Mondelo presenting Titi Robin's universe, from an Andalusian trip to the grave of singer Camaron de la Isla, featuring interviews and archival footage, music scenes extracts and family, the music and dance creation of Titi Robin and Gulabi Sapera, filmed in India and France.. The collaboration with this dancer from Rajasthan ended in 2007. It lasted fifteen years.