Artists in residence

INTERVIEW

What are the advantages of a residency at the Cité internationale des arts?

“The benefits of being in residence at the Cité internationale des arts are beyond my imagination. The Cité opened me to a whole new artistic world and I discovered new talents here by collaborating with artists from all over the world. For example, I discovered a talent for dance and performance by working with Anahita Hekmat, Alexandra Deutsch or Amin Gulgee.

As a composer, singer and violinist, the residency allowed me to meet many talented musicians and discover interesting musical styles. I had the chance to work with some of them, like Ghasen Fendri from Tunisia, or Victor Beneve and Bilyana Furnadzhieva from Bulgaria (around their beautiful crystal sound project where I collaborate with Lea Dudzik). Thanks to these meetings, my own creations were able to be built and strengthened.

The Cité internationale des arts is a very high quality cultural venue that has opened many doors to us, and allowed my husband – who is also a musician and who has lived and worked with me for 16 years – and I to make many contacts.
No need to mention the fantastic management and kindness of the people who run this place. They create a unique and professional atmosphere for all the artists in residence there. I am deeply happy and grateful to have the opportunity, in my career and professional life, to live in this artistic paradise.”

You were able to present your projects during concerts at the Cité internationale des arts, feedback on this subject?

“The feedback we received for our project was really good and positive, and not only for new projects.

It was really comforting and motivating for us, musicians who have lived and worked most of our lives in a difficult situation and atmosphere linked to a country like Iran, to be able to see the reaction of the public and other artists. It has given us even more confidence in what we are doing and we will work even more to continue to move forward on this musical path.”

BIOGRAPHY

Aïda Nosrat sings and plays the violin, nourished by her Azeri roots. Babak Amir Mobasher is a guitarist. Together, they form the Manushan duo and explore the Spanish gypsy universe but also its cousins in gypsy jazz or gypsy and central European music.

These two so dissimilar Iranians also explore American jazz, Brazilian rhythms, Turkish or southern Iranian melodies, Celtic or Klezmer music and nothing seems artificial as marriages seem to flow from each other.

Through Manushan, Aida Nosrar and Babak Amir Mobasher have decided to explore the spiritual heritage of the Manouche people with music that is as rooted as it is open to the world, as auditive as it is respectful of the past. As they indicate in Persian: it is a contemporary Iranian acoustic music.

Léo Marillier is a French violinist, playing “a game of poetry and controlled fire” (Alain Cochard, October 2017).

He obtained his 3rd cycle diploma (contemporary DAI) at the CNSMDP in 2019 with HaeSun Kang; a Master’s degree (2015) and a Graduate Diploma (2016) as a soloist concert performer at the New England Conservatory with Miriam Fried, with the best awards; as well as his 1st cycle diploma in Alexis Galpérine’s class at the CNSMDP where he entered to at 15 years old.

He was a full merit award recipient of the Florence Gould Foundation for his studies in the United States. At his return, he obtained a residency at the United States Foundation in 2016 and then at the Cité internationale des arts in 2018. Léo Marillier is preparing a second Master’s degree in research with Philippe Graffin at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague.

Other awards include: Ravel 2018 Prize, 1st Mozart Prize and Special Prize 8th Competition B. Dvarionas, 1st Prize 6th Marschner Competition, Special Prize Tchaikovsky 6th Tchaikovsky (Junior) Competition in Seoul and Honorary Prize 2014 Bellan Competition.

Recipient of the 2019 Fondation de France, Fondation Williamson, Mécénat Musical Société Générale and the Fonds Instrumental Français, Léo Marillier has been playing as a soloist with orchestra since the age of 13, with the WienerConcert Verine and then in Germany, Denmark, France, Lithuania, the United States and Russia.

In 2016, Léo Marillier founded the Ensemble A-letheia and in 2018, they recorded their first CD devoted to Beethoven’s concerto for violin and orchestra on the Cascavelle label. In 2019, Léo Marillier joined the Diotima Quartet on a tour of Colombia.  

Mireya Martín Larumbe (born in December 1980 in Pamplona, Spain) is a visual artist and video artist. She is represented by the Espacio Marzana Gallery, Bilbao (Spain).

After studying at the Beaux Arts in Bilbao, she studied gender and visual sociology, fields that have been driving her artistic research since her debuts. In her projects, the notion of becoming linked to the events of her own life helps her to speak of desire, the awareness of death and also of transcendence. She deploys a dreamlike, sensual and instinctive imagery, of which drawing is the main discipline, always accompanied by experimental videoanimation and sound.

Her projects have been the subject of various exhibitions and festivals: Instituto Cervantes (Madrid, Prague, Palermo, Rome, Belgrade), Les traversées du Marais (Paris), Cité Internationale Universitaire (Paris), Collège d’Espagne (Paris), Galeria Espacio Marzana (Bilbao), Fundación Bilbao Arte (Bilbao), Centro Huarte de Arte Contemporáneo (Huarte), Fundación María Forcada (Navarre), The Museum of Latin American art (California), Museo Cristóbal Balenciaga (Guéthary), Arteleku (San Sebastian), La Casa Encendida (Madrid), Fundación Lenguaje (Madrid), Festival Miradas de Mujeres (Madrid), Festival Bideodromo MEM (Bilbao).