Like a musical painter, Jean-Marc Zelwer is passionate about the different tones, the varied palette offered by the instruments and sonorities from the four corners of the world. " To discover an instrument is to discover another culture, even if you then weave it into your own story..." Thus he develops a singular universe nourished by plurality.

He has created music for choreographers such as Karine Saporta ( "Le bal dans un couloir de fer",  Ball in an Iron Corridor, 1987, "La fiancée aux yeux de bois", The Fiancée with wooden eyes 1988) and the Festina Lente Company. He also composes music for film and circus.

Alongside this, he directs the Kumpania Zelwer made up of eight artists including himself as multi-instrumentalist. Here the proliferation of strange and unusual instruments and objects appeal as much to the eye as to the ear. ("Les Montreurs d'ours sont partis", The Bear leaders Have Left 1991, "Daïssa, le salon des mendiants", Daïssa, The Beggars' Salon 1988.)

Jean-Marc Zelwer obtained the Romain Rolland Grant from the foreign ministry in 1993 in order to travel to India and carry out research there. On this trip he was initiated into the art of the santour by the master musician R.W. Wishweshwaran. In 1998 he studied the relationship between music and dance in Japanese tradition during an artist's residency at the Villa Kujoyama in Kyoto.

His creative work, through the elaboration of more or less erudite constructs, at once crude and refined, is above all an _expression of human feelings.


Jean-Marc Zelwer interview