Le Sacre du Tympan

Founded in Paris in 1998 by the composer, arranger and conductor Fred Pallem, Le Sacre du Tympan takes the form of a large jazz ensemble that crosses orchestral writing, film music, pop, rock, funk and song. Emerging from the French scene of improvised music, the project originally brought together several young instrumentalists encountered at the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique et de danse de Paris, in a flexible big-band setup where arrangement plays a central role. Le Sacre du Tympan develops a precise and narrative sound, built on dense brass sections, versatile rhythms and a marked taste for themes, moods and references to cinema and popular music. After a first self-titled album in 2002, the orchestra continued with Le Retour! in 2005, La Grande Ouverture in 2008 and SoundTrax in 2011, before more directly exploring the universe of François de Roubaix in 2015, then that of opening credits and animated music with Cartoons in 2017 and Cartoons, Le retour! in 2024. L’Odyssée in 2018, L’Odyssée Remix in 2019, Le Sacre du Tympan tell the Fables of La Fontaine in 2020 and X - Le Dixième in 2022 extend this trajectory between written jazz, visual culture and cross-format works. In parallel, Fred Pallem and Le Sacre du Tympan circulate between concert halls, jazz festivals and image- and live performance–related projects.