Dans Les Arbres

At what point does sound become music and music sound? Having built their art on the foundations of this very question, Dans Les Arbes throw themselves into the search for the middle ground between sound and music. Blurring the dividing line between the two, they create spontaneous compositions of a refined beauty.

Consisting of four active members of the European improvised music scene, Dans Les Arbres prepare and modify their instruments in unusual ways and create original combinations of airy, woody and metallic sounds. They often stress their instruments' percussive qualities and invite us to listen to the clarinet, the piano, the guitar and even the drums with new ears.

Dans Les Arbres' improvisations become accessible to the listener through the images and narratives that take shape in their heads as they listen. As one might expect from the ensemble’s name (it means "in the trees"), their music gives off a sense of the wind blowing through a canopy of leaves and branches; the musicians seem to surrender themselves to nature's will as they play, like different strings on an Aeolian harp.

With their new album, “Phosphorescence” (following on from two CDs with the emblematic ECM), this outstanding Franco-Norwegian ensemble is set to initiate Athenian audiences into its unique sound-world in its Greek debut at the Onassis Stegi.