Mandy LEROUGE

Diagnosed as hyperactive and assumed as such, Mandy LEROUGE is a curious jack of all trades, who has recently landed from a distant exo-planet…

DO NOT tell her about her musical education, she might take offense… Although she prefers laughing about it ! From the bass lines, hard worked in her 9 sqm student room, to the detuned family piano, through the trumpet, resonating in Marseille’s calanques, for not disturbing… Mandy sharpens her first musical weapons alone and as a self-educated, away from conservatories and other music schools.

Hanging out in a radio studio, she first discovers as a technician the range of possibilities offered by the mastering of sound techniques. Then, she focuses on the acousmatic power of the voice and becomes a program director and a daily radio host.

She owes the rest of her musical training to a lot of splendid meetings and chance encounters. In 2006, she joins the Balinese Gamelan « Bintang Tiga », directed by Gaston SYLVESTRE and the English Gamelan Master Andy CHANNING. She is later spotted by the notorious London composer and producer Nitin SAWHNEY, who offers her to take part to the Aftershock Project, that is to say two artistic residencies in the Casa della Musica (Genoa, Italy) and in the famous club Band on the Wall (Manchester, UK). During those workshops, she works with skilled musicians as the Mancunian jazz trumpeter and producer Matt HALSALL, the French singer-songwriter Pascale DANIEL or the experimenter Denis JONES.

Hitherto mainly performer, she crosses paths with the French artist and producer Alif Tree in 2009, who is the first to give her his entire musical trust. Then, she takes part to Alif Tree’s EP « Social Mask », released in February 2011, by writting the lyrics and arranging the vocal lines… New EP coming soon !

Refusing to be limited to one musical style and locked in a category, Mandy LEROUGE works on her voice in a constant research perspective, developping different voice coulours and interpretation styles, mainly influenced by Jazz, Rock, Blues, Electro and World Music, especially balkanic.