Tour'n'sol Prod.
With « Chant Song », Mathias puts melody at the heart of his creation. Album on 19/09/25
Chant Song, Mathias Lévy’s next album, is an endless dialogue, a perpetual quest for balance and meaning between the voice and the strings, the breath of song and that of the accordion, the words of poets like Prévert and Cendrars, and the joy of collective improvisation and freedom…
With Chant Song, Mathias Lévy puts melody at the very centre of his creation. Fascinated by their apparent simplicity, their emotional charge, the way they belong to the collective memory and are like a soundtrack to our lives, he has created a new repertoire to honour these melodies. Connecting emotions and sound, succeeding in telling a story through improvisation and natural understanding, this is the violinist’s ultimate melodic quest. To achieve this, he has brought together his long-time companions Sébastien Giniaux, Jean Philippe Viret and Laurent Derache, as well as the singer Lou Tavano, integrating vocals into his music for the first time.
He won first prize for violin, chamber music and music theory at the Raincy Conservatoire at the age of 17, and went on to perfect his jazz skills at the IACP. He then joined the CMDL, where Didier Lockwood introduced him to certain technical aspects of the jazz violin and encouraged him not to remain a prisoner of the culture of the solo violin. For Mathias Lévy, this was a brilliant and decisive opening towards new horizons…
A true multi-talent, Mathias Lévy has taken part in numerous projects in a wide variety of styles with : Caravan quartet, Grégory Privat, The Do, Catherine Ringer, Zaz, Marc Lavoine… He has also composed and performed for theatre and film. At the same time, he continues to collaborate with the crème de la crème of Gypsy jazz, including Biréli Lagrène and Stochelo Rosenberg. The virtuoso never ceases to take his violin from one world to another… You’ll find him with the Gypsy singer Norig, or improvising freely with the writer Valère Novarina. Everywhere he goes, he demonstrates a freedom of inspiration and an enlightened virtuosity that impresses.
In 2011, he won the Grand Prix Stéphane-Grappelli at the Calais Festival, marking the end of his assimilation of the jazz language. In 2013, he recorded the album Playtime, on which he invited organist Emmanuel Bex. His next album will be a contemporary tribute to Stéphane Grappelli : Revisting Grappelli.
Then came Bartok Impressions, released in 2018, showing just how many faces his violin can take, both in terms of its expressiveness and the variety of playing styles. With Unis Vers released in August 2019, in which he develops an acoustic aesthetic, blending classical influences, world music and solar poetic chamber jazz, Mathias Lévy presents for the first time his own music, In 2022, with Les démons familiers, Mathias Lévy broadens his horizons with a large-scale orchestral work, continuing his desire to build bridges and break codes…
Mathias Lévy - violin, vocals, compositions
Lou Tavano - vocals
Laurent Derache - accordion, vocals
Sébastien Giniaux - guitar, cello, vocals
Jean-Philippe Viret - double bass, vocals
About « Chant Song » (2025)
Fip
« Chant Song, Mathias Lévy’s beautiful, gentle new programme in the form of a collection of poems recited by the strings, the accordion and Lou Tavano, the fifth member of this small (luxury) chamber orchestra. To great words go the great Aedes! »
About « Les démons familiers » (2022)
Jazz News Magazine
« Mathias confirms his talents – a powerful evocation of his imaginary folklore, a cohabitation of the lyricism of his childhood violin and rhythm – and once again leaves us on the edge of emotion. An artist in a state of grace. »
CHOC – Jazz Magazine
« Mathias Lévy, installed in the firmament of European violinists. »
Citizen Jazz
« A finely chiselled script, a flawless cast, brilliant acting and a human touch: that’s what Mathias Lévy’s ‘musical film’ is all about. Its familiar demons could soon become yours. »
Froggy’s delight
« The result is magnificent. The melodies are magnetic, solar, the orchestration superb. All these musicians are in perfect harmony, with an ensemble sound, a marriage of timbres and expressive power to bring out the personal, multiform and captivating world of Mathias Lévy. »
About « Unis Vers » (2019)
TTTT – Télérama
Télérama
« Mathias Lévy has a special way of transforming each album into an object of enchantment. »
Jazz News
« Both lyrical and dancing, Unis Vers is enchanting and puts Lévy right in line with Ponty, Lockwood and Grappelli, of course. »
Citizen Jazz
« The proposal is pure beauty. »
Médiapart
« Mathias Lévy has more than one string to his bow: the sensitivity and finesse of his playing, the variety of musical worlds he frequents, his inventiveness, the balance between the past, which he has taken on with remarkable skill, and a future shaped by his insatiable curiosity. »
Festival Classique de la Baule, Jazz sous les Pommiers, Salle Pleyel, Festival Django, Festival d’Uzes, Jazz en Touraine, Jazz en Touraine, New Morning, Festival de Tourcoing, Budapest Music Center, Wolfisheim Jazz Festival, Belle-île en Jazz, Maison Laffitte Jazz Festival, Festival d’Avignon, Festival Jazz à nice, Crest Jazz Festival, Eaubonne Jazz, Nancy Jazz Pulsation, Festival Mens Alors, Les Jeudis musicaux de Royan, D’Jazz Nevers Festival, Théâtre des Salins - Scène Nationale de Martigues, Juan les pins, Jazz n’klezmer, Marseille Jazz des 5 continents, Jazzebre, Scènes nationales du Jura, Jazz au fil de l’oise, Noirlac, Scène nationale de Rouen, Jazz à l’ouest, Mucem, Festival Classique de Royan, Sunset, Cheval Blanc, Mucem, Duc des Lombards, Cluny Jazz, Festival de Niort, La Fraternelle, Cordes en balades...
