ONJ
The Other Shore
COLORE ARTISTS
September 2025 – New signings and a new direction for COLORE!
For the past 15 years, COLORE has been showcasing the unique talents of the French music
scene..
At the heart of our musical passion lies jazz — yet through our collaborations, this world
keeps expanding, carrying us toward other shores and new realms of imagination.
At the same time, a new Orchestre National de Jazz — with a fresh direction and youthful energy as it celebrates its 40th anniversary — has honored us by entrusting COLORE with its distribution.
In short, our hearts are beating stronger than ever!
Céline Bonacina
Jazz Fusion
CÉLINE BONACINA
Finalist – Victoires du Jazz 2024
With her original musical voice — a kind of Creole jazz — and irresistible energy, Céline Bonacina has become one of the most compelling figures on today’s jazz scene.
Nominated at the Victoires du Jazz in both 2012 and 2024, named Talent Jazz Adami 2013, and winner of the Rezzo Jazz à Vienne competition, she is widely regarded as one of the most reliable and inspiring forces in contemporary jazz.
A formative stay on the island of La Réunion led her to create, around her baritone saxophone, a multicolored universe that irresistibly invites dance. Hailed by critics and celebrated on major stages, she continues her journey with impressive vitality.
In 2020, at the invitation of the Le Mans Jazz Festival, she launched an explosive duo with saxophone and clarinet virtuoso Laurent Dehors, soon acclaimed at D’Jazz Nevers, Jazzèbre, Jazz à Vienne, and beyond.
In 2022 and 2023, Bonacina was highly visible as part of Rhoda Scott’s Ladies All Stars, without slowing down her own projects. Her latest album, Jump! (Cristal Records, September 2023), marks a new chapter — a nod to American jazz fusion — while preserving all the finesse and dynamism that define her music.
DUO Miral
Chanson / oriental / jazz
DUO MIRAL
Climène Zarkan — a magnetic voice and intuitive composer — and Baptiste Ferrandis, a refined guitarist with a poetic and visionary touch, weave together a deeply human music, nourished by multiple influences: traditional music, jazz, and sound poetry. Their work is turned toward intimacy and sensitivity, embracing emotion in all its nuance.
Their new EP, Horizons Roses, composed of six original pieces, embodies this subtle alchemy — a world of gentle shadows and fragile lights, carried by a delightfully timeless aesthetic where virtuosity meets emotion.
LEÏLA MARTIAL
vocal / clown
LEÏLA MARTIAL
Nominated for the Victoires du Jazz 2025 – Vocal Artist of the Year
Featured in Jazz Magazine / Jazz News Awards 2024
Winner – Victoires du Jazz “Vocal Artist” 2020
Vocal Jazz Prize 2019 – Académie du Jazz
An unclassifiable vocalist, Leïla Martial emerged from jazz but has been driven ever since by a boundless curiosity.
Winner of numerous prestigious awards (La Défense, Crest, Victoires du Jazz), she has developed a singular approach to singing, blending scat, imaginary language, and improvisation. Her journey has taken her from the CNR in Toulouse to international stages.
Fascinated by nomadic vocal traditions, she explores the voice as a mobile home resonating with the world. Trained in clown performance, she also brings body, play, and poetry into her art.
She has made a strong impression with her group Baa Box and her participation in the multicultural project Aka Free Voices of Forest.
In 2023, she premiered Jubilä, a one-woman clown-inspired show and manifesto, the fruit of 20 years of artistic research. She continues to perform in Le Jardin des Délices, a duo with cellist Valentin Ceccaldi, and will present a new creation in 2025, Karma Bazar, in duo with pianist Élie Dufour.
Her art is a song of the living — free, daring, and deeply embodied.
After serving as associate artist at Scènes du Jura, she is currently associate composer at Le Parvis, Tarbes and L’Astrada, Marciac.
Sylvain Rifflet
jazz / ciné-concert
SYLVAIN RIFFLET
Sylvain Rifflet is a French saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer with an already remarkable career. Regularly invited to perform at major national venues and festivals (Jazz au fil de l’Oise, Banlieues Bleues, Théâtre de Cornouaille, Paul B, Théâtre Durance, among others), he has developed over the years a distinctive musical identity. His work draws inspiration both from American repetitive music (Moondog) and from the legacy of jazz greats such as Stan Getz, to whom he has paid tribute on several occasions.
Guided by an adventurous vision of jazz, he continues to push the boundaries of the genre, moving between exploration, trance, and sonic poetry, while often crossing paths with other art forms such as film and video — as in his recent cine-concert based on Tod Browning’s The Unknown.
His latest trio project, We Want Stars, brings together keyboards, saxophone, and drums in an original setting. This work has earned him the title of French Musician of the Year 2024, awarded by the specialized press.
EVE RISSER & NAÏNY DIABATÉ
piano / voix du Mali
EVE RISSER & NAINY DIABATE « Anw be yonbolo »
Composer and pianist Eve Risser and Malian singer Naïny Diabaté explore contrast and harmony through a free-form encounter with Mandingo traditions — an unexpected alliance between the soaring clarity of voice and the vibrant textures of the prepared piano.
“Anw be yonbolo” means “We are together” in Bambara. The songs, often partly improvised, evoke themes of women’s rights, the protection and dignity of children, and the essential value of coexistence.
This collaboration celebrates a meeting of generations and cultures, where the spirit of sisterhood guides both artists as they carry their respective heritages — that of European and American composers and that of Malian griots and musicians — toward new continents, both real and imaginary, where music becomes at once meditative and full of movement.
SARĀB
Rock Oriental
SARĀB
Selected for Les Inouïs du Printemps de Bourges 2025 – Île-de-France RegionSelected for MaMa 2025 – Paris
Born from the encounter between Franco-Syrian singer Climène Zarkan and guitarist Baptiste Ferrandis, Sarāb — meaning “mirage” in Arabic — masterfully blends rock, modern jazz, and Arabic sounds.
Since 2018, and after more than a hundred concerts across Europe and the Mediterranean, Sarāb has evolved and reinvented its universe. In early 2023, the group released Qawalebese Tape, a filmed EP born of a deep creative dive into millennia-old traditions infused with contemporary influences. The result is music that borders on the sacred, carrying a dimension beyond us, rooted in an oral heritage now fading under one-sided globalization. A delicate flirtation with latent anachronism, Sarāb dusts off cassette players and yellowed postcards… inviting listeners into a space of memory where harmony makes the maqāmāt — oriental modes — dance in a storm of electric fury.
Their new album, Mīt warde – Cent Roses , will be released on February 6, 2026 — a poetic and electric cry at the crossroads of maqām, UK rock, and analog synths. (Release party on February 16, 2026 at La Maroquinerie, Paris).
ORCHESTRE NATIONAL DE JAZZ
direction : Sylvaine Hélary
Orchestre National de Jazz
Artistic Direction – Sylvaine Hélary
Appointed in March 2024 as Artistic Director of the National Jazz Orchestra, flutist and composer Sylvaine Hélary launches her project in June 2025 with a new 16-piece ensemble and a program dedicated to American composer Carla Bley. With Carla received critical acclaim from both the press and audiences at its Paris premiere on September 13 at Maison de la Radio.
Soon after, the ONJ unveils a second program for young audiences: La Planète Sauvage, a hybrid and immersive show inspired by René Laloux and Roland Topor’s 1973 sci-fi fable, itself freely adapted from Stefan Wul’s 1957 novel Oms en série.
In her first year as Artistic Director, Hélary has imagined two ambitious creations bringing together nearly thirty artists from across generations:
- With Carla, a joyful tribute to Carla Bley’s protean universe, celebrating this iconic and iconoclastic figure of jazz.
- La Planète Sauvage, a show for teenagers and adults alike, reimagining the cult 1973 animated film in an immersive production that merges cinema, music, and contemporary performance.
“I take on the artistic direction of the National Jazz Orchestra with great enthusiasm. This new chapter in my journey resonates with the ONJ’s history, while reinventing it and taking it into unexplored territories. This transition represents both continuity and a desire to amplify the aspirations of this unique institution.”
Adèle Viret
jazz chambriste
ADÈLE VIRET
Winner – Victoires du Jazz 2025, “Révélation” (Newcomer of the Year) category
Winner – Jazz Migration 2023
At just 25, Adèle Viret already promises an exciting musical journey ahead. Born into a family of musicians (her father is double bassist Jean-Philippe Viret), the cellist began composing at an early age and has since explored diverse musical territories through her studies in Paris and Brussels, as well as in multidisciplinary projects as a young professional.
Adèle has embraced the joy of intercultural collaborations, performing with the Mediterranean Youth Orchestra and joining a collective of Bulgarian, French, Portuguese, and Tunisian musicians. A season with the French National Youth Jazz Orchestra (2021–2022) and her selection for the Jazz Migration program (AJC network) brought her early recognition within the jazz community.
In 2023, she was awarded the Forte grant for emerging talents in the Île-de-France region, enabling her to produce her debut album, Close to the Water, which earned high praise from the specialized press upon its release in autumn 2024.
She now surrounds herself with a new generation of Parisian and Brussels-based musicians, including the brilliant Tunisian-born pianist Wajdi Riahi.
MEHDI NASSOULI
Guembri, voix / Gnaoua trad. & fusion
MEHDI NASSOULI
Guembri, voice – traditional & fusion Gnawa music
A true ambassador of Gnawa culture across numerous countries and traditional stage formats, the young Moroccan artist Mehdi Nassouli brings both legitimacy and mastery, as well as the audacity to share the stage with internationally renowned musicians: Titi Robin, with whom he has toured for 12 years, Benjamin Tobkin, Omar Sosa, Andy Emler, Karim Ziad, Hindi Zahra, Para One, Nneka, Justin Adams, Alpha Blondy, among others.
Yet beyond collaboration, Mehdi Nassouli has forged his own resolutely contemporary and fusion universe with the Mehdi Nassouli Band, where tradition meets innovation, and the sounds of the guembri and voice resonate in a modern, global language.
Robinson Khoury
JAZZ HYBRIDE / ORIENTAL
ROBINSON KHOURY
Django Reinhardt Prize 2024 – Académie du Jazz
Best French Jazz Musician of the Year
Nominated for the 2025 Victoires du Jazz – “Concert of the Year” Category
Jazz sous les Pommiers Artist-in-Residence until 2026
A young trombone virtuoso, Robinson Khoury is one of the most exciting new voices on the jazz scene. With remarkable instrumental mastery, he brings sweeping lyricism to every melody he touches—as well as to his dazzling improvisations.
At just 30 years old, Khoury has already performed with some of the world’s leading ensembles (Metropole Orkest, Quincy Jones Orchestra in 2019) and regularly collaborates with both French and international artists, including Michel Portal, Sarāb, Théo Ceccaldi, Leïla Martial, Abdullah Miniawy, and Erik Truffaz.
A musician in constant exploration, his explosive energy and lyrical technique are the foundation of a powerful artistic vision—one that is deeply personal and unmistakably his own.
In 2024, he was awarded the Django Reinhardt Prize by the Académie du Jazz, recognizing him as the Best French Jazz Musician of the Year.
Following Broken Lines (a Charles Cros Academy “Coup de Cœur” in 2021), he released MŸA (Komos Records), an album where he crafts a thrilling alchemy of jazz, Middle Eastern sounds, early music, and electronic textures.
As an artist-in-residence at Jazz sous les Pommiers since 2024, he is developing two major new works for 2025–2026: Quatuor Demi-Lune and Aria.
Laura PERRUDIN
Harpe, Voix / Hybride folk-jazz
LAURA PERRUDIN
Singer and harpist, composer, producer, and songwriter, Laura Perrudin first came to prominence in 2015 with her debut album Impressions, widely acclaimed by the press (featured by Le Monde, FIP, Les Inrockuptibles, and the BBC).
Accompanying herself on the harp — acoustic, in a folk setting, or electric with machines — she walks a tightrope between pop and the experimental, between deep grooves and hallucinatory textures, between the pictorial and the narrative, between the spontaneity of live performance and the obsessive detail of her electronic productions.
KEYVAN CHEMIRANI
zarb / oriental
KEYVAN CHEMIRANI
TALES OF NAR
The two sons of master Djamchid Chemirani embody both a prestigious lineage of Persian classical music and a uniquely French passion for weaving together diverse traditions. The rhythms they explore are at once ancient and new, deeply rooted yet postmodern, venturing into jazz, pop, Breton music, and high-level improvisation.
In 2022, Keyvan Chemirani composed a bold opera for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, Negar, telling a sapphic love story set in the Iran of the mullahs. During this project, he met an extraordinary Japanese violinist in the German orchestra, Yvlin, whose playing shows “an unprecedented openness to Oriental modality combined with the full rigor of Western classical practice,” as Keyvan describes. He also recalled pianist Benjamin Moussay, with whom he had worked a decade earlier in clarinetist Louis Sclavis’s quartet — “a boundary-free musician; he loves pop, he loves Bach.”
Their first residency at Abbaye de Royaumont produced an unexpected result: the duo found themselves delightfully happy as a quartet. The project thus took shape under the name Tales of Nar – Tales of New Ancient Rhythms.
VALENTIN CECCALDI
Violoncelle / Jazz Hors Cadre
VALENTIN CECCALDI
(BONBON FLAMME)
Valentin Ceccaldi is the very definition of a dazzlingly versatile musician, seemingly gifted with ubiquity. A founding member of the Tricollectif, he has been one of the most active soloists on the European scene for over a decade. Alongside his brother Théo (Kutu), with clarinetist Yom, in duo with Leïla Martial, or with Lagon Nwar, he is everywhere. Yet his true flagship project remains Bonbon Flamme, the group for which he assumes full artistic direction.
Surrounded by a team of eccentric European musicians, he concocts a fiery cocktail, spiced with humor and originality.
The ensemble is supported by JazzWith (AJC) in 2025–2026, and will be presented in early December 2025 during the AJC Annual Meetings.
SARAH LENKA
jazz / folk / oriental
SARAH LENKA
Sarah Lenka is a storyteller devoted to narrating the lives of women — between wonder and roughness, and in the midst, the infinite sublimity of their experiences. Winner of the SACEM Prize for Best Jazz Singer and an artist of the Génération SPEDIDAM program, she has released four albums, rich with powerful reinterpretations and original compositions. She carves a singular path in the French musical landscape, celebrated for her dedication to portraying women’s lives in all their complexity. One of her recurring obsessions is singing about exile and uprooting.
Her latest album, ISHA, embodies this vision perfectly. Her music honors the resilience of women across generations, carrying their memory through a deeply emotional listening experience.
Sarah Lenka transcends boundaries, blending ancient traditions with contemporary innovation. She navigates multiple languages — English, Arabic, and a touch of Hebrew — and skillfully intertwines them with a folk sound inspired by Western traditions, creating a musical universe both intimate and expansive.