Lionel Suarez

Born in Rodez in 1977 and tied to Bertholène in Aveyron, Lionel Suarez developed from an early age a familiar relationship with the accordion within a family of musicians, before training in solfège, piano and then at the Marseille Conservatory, where he earned a first prize. Active since the mid-1990s, Suarez has worked through dance halls, stages in the Toulouse region and a varied repertoire ranging from Occitan music to chanson, from street theatre to salsa, while building a personal approach to jazz and improvisation. Based in the Île-de-France region in the early 2000s, he pursues a career as an instrumentalist between accompaniment, creation and transversal projects, alongside artists such as Claude Nougaro, Zebda, Bernard Lavilliers, Véronique Sanson, Sanseverino, Roberto Alagna or André Minvielle, with whom he formed the duo Minvielle + Suarez. His playing, at once flexible, melodic and rhythmically mobile, makes the accordion travel between French chanson, jazz, popular music of the Southwest and Latin colors. Under his name, Lionel Suarez notably published Tandem with André Minvielle in 2011, Cocanha! in 2013 in a trio with Pierre-François Dufour and Kevin Seddiki, then Quarteto Gardel in 2018 with Airelle Besson, Vincent Ségal and Minino Garay, a project nourished by the tango universe and Carlos Gardel.