Orange Blossom: 2009 Alliance Française Blockbuster

French Electronic World Music

L’ethno-électro à la française

If you want to catapult multiculturalism to its furthest parameters, look no further than Orange Blossom.*

Orange Blossom is "THE" electronic hit group in France today. It is an exotic, multicultural, and hip band of four musicians who harmoniously gather their different sensibilities to create a new hybrid sound.

The band was formed in 1993 in the city of Nantes, Brittany, with Pierre-Jean Chabot (known as PJ Chabot) on violin and Jean-Christophe Waechter (known as Jay C.) on percussions and vocals.

Before their second album came out, the group was influenced by ethnic and traditional music. They met and collaborated with several non-French artists, like Ivorian percussion group Yelemba D'Abidjan and Egyptian group Ganoub. They toured in Egypt, France, and Belgium. Vocalist Jay C. left the band in 2000, and in 2002, percussionist Mathias Vaguenez and vocalist Leïla Bounous joined the group and proceeded to work for two years on their most recent album. Shortly after its completion lead vocalist Bounous formally left the band to be replaced by Nawel Ben Kraïem, an accomplished singer of Tunisian origins, who recently was recently awarded the Monte Carlo Doualiya Prize for Music of 2008.

Their latest album, Everything Must Change, released in 2005, is an amalgam of European electro-beats, West African rhythms, Arabic and Middle Eastern melodies and Western rock. Each song spans the globe, incorporating sources as diverse as Indian rhythms, African percussion, Bulgarian voices and Tchaikovsky.

This outstanding live formation now features Nawel, a mysterious woman whose voice resounds both timeless and evocative, violinist PJ, French-born and classically-trained, a sort of ex-punk version of Nigel Kennedy with a healthy disrespect for technique, percussionist Mathias, raised in France and "born again" amongst the people and instruments of Western Africa, and finally drummer and synthesizer expert Carlos, a well-traveled, dreadlocked Mexican with an eclectic sense of musical adventure. Together, they meld into a sensual, glorious whole.

Better remember the name and get used to it - Orange Blossom is about to be HUGE. Don’t miss it and prepare to be overwhelmed…

Hand-picked to open for Robert Plant’s recent world-tour, they are admired by the lead singer of the legendary rock band Led Zeppelin for "their compulsive rhythms and soulful vocals … it’s a serene hypnosis."

* Phil Meadley, The Independent

Preview Orange Blossom on YouTube.

Tickets: $20, $25, $30, $35 available at the Lisner Box Office, TicketMaster Outlets, PhoneCharge and online at www.ticketmaster.com. Discount for Alliance Française DC members: limited $15 tickets - use code AFDC when ordering.

Direct link to purchase tickets: http://www.ticketmaster.com/event/150041797CB52E18?artistid=1276324&majorcatid=10001&minorcatid=5

Organized in collaboration with the Delegation Generale de l’Alliance Francaise, USA, the George Washington University Lisner Auditorium and the Mexican Cultural Institute.