The Space Travelers

Since 2009, the Space Travelers have been playing with the hybridization of imaginary worlds to reinvent our relationship to Space, far from the usual ideas. Created in the bosom of the Observatoire de l'Espace, the arts-sciences laboratory of the Centre national d'études spatiales, the group was born of a desire to invest the field of music in a multidisciplinary approach. It is placed under the artistic direction of the cellist Didier Petit and Gérard Azoulay, director of the Space Observatory of the French Space Agency (CNES). By mobilizing its network of artists and scientists and its documentary resources, the birth of the "Voyageurs" in 2009 was linked to a concert in the world of jazz, a mixture of song detour from the repertoire, literary texts of writers from the magazine Espace(s) - as well as unpublished archives of space. In 2010 and 11, following the year France-Russia, it is the show Correspondance Paris-Moscow around contemporary Russian writers and their French cousins serving as a pretext for a musical game around these two languages. In 2013, a tour through France around sound extracts from space, literature and films and in 2014 and 15, the show Chute Libre on a text by Pierre Meunier related to his experience in weightlessness have definitively established this musical, sound and film UFO.

Claudia Solal

Author, composer, improviser, singer with a singular universe, Claudia Solal explored the repertoire of jazz standards before becoming interested in improvised music. In addition to her highly acclaimed collaboration with Benjamin Moussay, which has continued since 2003, in 2006 she created an astonishing duo with saxophonist Jean-Charles Richard, focusing on improvisation. Besides her own projects, Claudia Solal has participated in a dozen records (Room Service, My Own Foolosophy, Porridge Days...). She is currently working in Yves Rousseau's sextet Poète, vos papiers, in homage to Léo Ferré, Françoise Toullec's quintet La Banquise, Martial Solal's Newdecaband, the quintet Les âmes papillons and Jean-Marie Machado's orchestra Danzas. In addition, she composes for the theater and the image and also lends her voice for the radio and the cinema. Her latest album Butter in my Brain released in 2018 was critically acclaimed.

Philippe Foch

A trained percussionist, Philippe Foch has cultivated a strong relationship with the tablas for many years. His career is marked by multiple encounters and crossings with theater, circus and dance. He founded Les Amants de Juliette with Benoît Delbecq and Serge Adam and was the drummer for Akosh S. Unit and Didier Malherbe. He currently shares projects with Christian Sebille, Erwan Keravec or Mathias Delplanque. He performed for the first time with the Voyageurs de l'Espace during the Nuit Blanche, at the CNES headquarters in Paris, in 2010. As an associate artist of Athénor since 2006, he has created several shows with Brigitte Lallier-Maisonneuve (Kernel), Philippe Le Goff (Nanuq & Ganesh, Jardin), the singer Aurélie Maisonneuve and the dancer Kazumi Fuchigami (Noun et Nout).

Didier Petit

For 30 years, Didier Petit has proposed a singular music that listens to the world. From 2000 to 2019, he created 9 sides for cello alone, Deviation recorded in the Pyrenees, Don't Explain recorded in Minneapolis and D'Accord recorded in Beijing, which he presents everywhere with happiness. In 1990, he founded the collection of in situ discs, seeking to document a (counter)current of musical ideas. He was also at the initiative of the Decades of Improvised Music in 1986, of the WormHoles Festival in 2007 with Etienne Bultingaire and co-founder of Allumés du Jazz, an association of French independent labels. He created the ensemble Les Voyageurs de l'Espace in 2009 in close collaboration with Gérard Azoulay. Since 2011, he is artistic advisor to the Space Observatory and the Sideration Festival at the National Center for Space Studies (CNES). He experienced weightlessness with his cello in the Zero G Airplane and he also rubs shoulders with Olivier Darné's city bees. He shares his life between China, the United States and Burgundy.