Vocal Jazz with Nordic Experimental Elements
Sophie Tassignon: Voice & Live Electronics
Album: Mysteries Unfold (RareNoise Records, 2020)
“The listener soon forgets the staggering technicalities that must have been involved in making this thoroughly engaging album, and is taken on a trip into the multi-faceted emotions of human existence, and humanity’s ever-questing spirit.”
Roger Trenwith, The Progressive Aspect
“By any reasonable standard, the new solo album from Berlin-based Belgian vocalist Sophie Tassignon is an extraordinary achievement…”
Nigel Barrett, Jazzjournal
The haunting strains of a distant melody, the resplendent majesty of an angelic choir; the echoing cries of circling birds, the thundering clomp of charging hoofbeats; the menace of an ominous growl, the soul-stirring chime of a tolling bell, the urgency of a percussive rhythm: Sophie Tassignon conjures all of these with only that most beautiful, boundless and mysterious of instruments, the human voice. On her first solo album, Mysteries Unfold, the Belgian-born, Berlin-based vocalist transcends time and language to explore and evoke a stunning panoply of human emotion.
Released in 2020 via RareNoise Records, Mysteries Unfold weaves a dazzling sonic tapestry from the varicolored threads of Tassignon’s versatile and daring voice. Able to grip the listener’s heart with just her emotional expression of a lyric, Tassignon crafts a staggering variety of effects by layering her voice into polyphonic architectures or lush choruses, powerful ensembles or enigmatic atmospheres. Drawing influence from the ancient to the boundary-stretching, she unearths a unifying strain of spiritual longing that underlies the human experience.
KONTAKT
Sophie Tassignon
Zur Innung 40
10247 Berlin
Tel: +49 163 877 48 96
E-mail: sophietassignon@gmail.com
www.sophietassignon.com
SOPHIE TASSIGNON – BIOGRAPHIE
Award-winning vocalist and composer Sophie Tassignon, a two-time Gold Medalist at the Global Music Awards (for Female Vocalist and Composition), is a Berlin-based versatile musician known for her work in jazz, avant-garde, and electroacoustic music. Fluent in five languages, including Russian, and with an intermediate proficiency in Arabic, she draws on a broad range of musical influences and experimental traditions. Over the past 20 years, she has explored diverse contexts, from avant-garde jazz and free improvisation to theater and electroacoustic performance.
Tassignon has toured internationally and released 11 albums on notable labels, including WERF Records, Clean Feed, RareNoise, and Jazzwerkstatt, collaborating with artists such as Simon Vincent (Charlotte & Mr. Stone), Susanne Folk (Azolia), and Peter Van Huffel, while also leading Khyal, an ensemble blending jazz with Arabic poetry. Her first solo album Mysteries Unfold (RareNoise, 2020), was praised as “tantalizing” by Musica Jazz. Her second solo album, featuring electroacoustic pieces in four languages, is set for release in March 2025 on Nemu Records, sung in English, German, Arabic, and Russian.
Tassignon’s long-standing collaboration with theater director Elzbieta Bednarska highlights her versatility in modern theater and multimedia performance.
Sophie Tassignon was invited to perform at the “SYNC.2013: BRUITISME PHILOSOPHY” at the International Festival/Competition of Electroacoustic Music and Multimedia in Yekaterinburg, as well as at the “Tech Festival 2017” in Denmark, “Berlin Solo Impro” in 2022, the “Electroacoustic Improvisation Summit” in New York in 2023, and at “Visiones Sonoras 20” at CMMAS in Mexico.
Current projects include her solo works, the electroacoustic duo LOUISE ET VILMORIN with Kevin Patton, Khyal, now featuring both Arabic and Hebrew poetry, and Azolia with Susanne Folk.