OLIVIER MANOURY

Olivier Manoury was born in Tulle, (Limousin, France) in 1953.

He moved to Paris with his parents as a child. He played bagpipes (cabrette) at folk music gatherings in the Bastille area bars where a lot of people from Auvergne lived. After grammar school he studied painting and sculpture at the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and literature at the university of the Sorbonne where he got a masters degree in 1976.

Olivier Manoury then became an instrument maker building violins ,violas, baroque and folk instruments. He started playing bandoneon and became a bandoneon tuner and restorer. He now concentrates exclusively on playing turning professional in 1979

Since then he has played in many traditional tango bands, accompanied many singers and created his own bands. He occasionally appears as a guest in jazz and other improvised music concerts and recordings (Arrigo Cappelletti Quartet in Milano). He also recorded a solo Bandoneon album in duo with the Uruguayan pianist Enrique Pascual, the baryton singer Jorge Chamine, Tangoneon, the Paris based tango band Tempo di tango, The stockholm based Olivier Manoury septet, the Argentinean cartoonist/singer Serguei, the Uruguayan percussion player Jorge Trasante, the African singer Bonga and the American jazz singer Dee Dee Bridgewater and Double bass Player Yves Torchinsky.

Olivier Manoury is also a composer and writes music for
movies(Solveig Anspach ‘s Haut les Coeurs), TV (Novacek for TV channel France2), shows with the circus artist Nikolaus, dramma (Eva Peron by Copi in 1993 and Chantecler by Edmond Rostand in 1996 at the Theatre National de Chaillot), dance, he is touring worldwide with Maurice Béjart’s dance /theater show Che Quijote y Bandoneon.