Cabaret Contemporain

Born in Paris in the early 2010s, Cabaret Contemporain brings together several instrumentalists from both classical/art music and contemporary music to explore the boundary between techno, repetitive music and improvisation. The collective composes and performs rhythmic, hypnotic music built on repeated motifs, continuous pulses and slow variations, striving to transpose certain codes associated with electronic club music onto acoustic instruments. Alongside their own pieces, the musicians develop programmes devoted to composers such as Moondog or Terry Riley, approached as collective rewritings that combine structured arrangements with spaces for improvisation. Active on French and European stages — from electronic music festivals to concert halls and multidisciplinary venues — Cabaret Contemporain occupies a hybrid field where club culture, American minimalism, jazz influences and concerns from contemporary art music intersect.