H-Burns & The Stranger Quartet

On April 10, 2026 at L'Usine - Scènes et Cines Istres, Renaud Brustlein, also known as H-Burns, pays tribute to Leonard Cohen. With The Stranger Quartet, a string quartet created for this project, he revisits the Canadian’s first four albums. The arrangements remain close to the original spirit while allowing the texture of the strings and the grain of H-Burns’ voice to come through, offering a journey through Cohen’s early work between spare folk and delicate ballads. Along the way are those landmark songs that shaped a way of writing and singing — from “Suzanne” to “So Long, Marianne,” and including “Bird on the Wire” and “Famous Blue Raincoat.” Guitar, harmonies and strings establish a restrained, precise dynamic that highlights the lyrics, the phrasing and the subtle tension of the melodies. H-Burns does not seek to imitate; he gently makes the material his own, playing on breaths and silences, and underscoring the thread of transmission that runs through Cohen’s oeuvre. A reinterpretation focused on the songs themselves, conceived for the stage.