Party: Kolja

Party: Kolja

“What is the role of an artist today?” Kolja : “To share one’s dreams with those who no longer have the time to dream”
Kolja is a 38 year old songwriter, born in Germany. His entire family settles down in France when he’s hardly five years old and it’s in Paris that he will experience his very first musical emotions.
Multilingual in French, German, English and Spanish, he apprehends with ease all styles of music without ever occulting its specific meaning. Music changed his life when he was still a child and he has since always imagined it as one of today’s most powerful vehicles of expression, communication and gathering.
This nascent ardour begun to take over Kolja’s universe when he was still a young boy. He takes his first piano lessons at four, followed by the violin two years later. His first conscious musical experience is the 9th symphony of Beethoven, of which he randomly found the record by rummaging through shelves at home. He plays it out of sheer curiosity. All his childhood, Kolja lives surrounded by an eclectic musical atmosphere and as in so many families, the conductors of this patchwork orchestra are his parents. Thus he discovers not only classical music but also world music as well as songs by The Beatles, Leonard Cohen, Stevie Wonder, George Brassens, the Mama’s and the Papa’s… Thanks to this early initiation, Kolja will later particularly favor musical genres with strong melodies and harmonies.
The teenage years… encounters, musical affinities, shared enthusiasms and the creation of the first band. Kolja is assigned to the guitar, an instrument he never had experimented with. As luck wants it, his father has one, tossed away in a cupboard: Kolja would never part from this instrument again. Concerts and recordings follow suit, at increasing rhythm. He participates in various bands and projects for the following ten years and in “Deniro”, the final formation he takes part in, he is the undisputed singer and guitarist but also the main composer. Things are getting serious, projects take concrete shape. The major goal now is to release an album. One track is selected on the compilation “Llama Ranch” of Cornelius’ Japanese label “Trattoria”.
The band splits up. Kolja decides to take his distances, to think things over. He leaves for Argentina. A recording studio awaits him over there. Change of location, of culture, of faces… His inspiration unleashed, he writes many songs and quickly brings together musicians with whom he gives concerts in different clubs of Buenos Aires. When the fee is not sufficient to remunerate his band, Kolja faces the audience alone with his guitar, with the same success. The pieces fall into place, and two years after his departure he is back in Paris, ready to complete his project.
Kolja’s songs are all in English “This language, through its consonance, is the most appropriate for my music”. He firstly chooses to record “Despedida”, “Contradiction Makes The Man”, “My Shelter For You” and “Embrace My Madness”. The undertaking is a complex one, as it consists in mixing his songs, mainly composed with the guitar, with other acoustic instruments, programs, loops and samples created from his own guitar sequences.
After sharing stages with bands such as The Kills, Jay-Jay Johanson or Elysian Fields, playing in various bands (Nouvelle Vague, Bang Bang, Colder or Cosmobrown), being part of the Rolling Stone's Top 25 Best Bands on Myspace in 2007, he released an album (“Wide Open” 2008) and two EP’s (“Into The Open” 2008 and “Through The Winter” 2009) under license of EMI.
After a couple of years dedicated to the opening of an urban cultures art place in Berlin, he is now ready to continue his musical journey.
“What attracts you in music?” Kolja : “It’s the only form of Art that you can perceive when you fall asleep. It speaks directly to to your subconscious".
www.soundcloud.com/koljamusic

Invited: Ella Ornstein, Daniel M. Karlsson, Nina Wagner, Pierre Jabot, Camille Nibas, Mandy Mouellic, Sof Ya, Oranne Dutoit De Rahan, Jakob Miller, Francois Reumont, Magritte Jaco, Anja Sugar, Vincent Larroche, Vittorio Pagani, Marie Bernardeau, Pauline Taylor, Vincent Sannier, Martin Balas, Joanna Pozzo, Jenny da Suli, Arnaud Joly Martineau Delacroix, Andrew Wanliss-Orlebar, Lars Blumers, Yaco Gonzalez Sainz de los Terreros, Justin Feuerring, Nicola Delorme, AnneLine H. Thorsen, Emmanuelle Motron, Benoit Gerout, Julie PECRIAUX, Carlos Santiso, Laurent Perez Del Mar, Bassem Ajaltouni, Magdalena Jarvin, Vassili Verrecchia, Erlend Borgund, Philipp Strobel, Leon Léon, Luciano Leyrado, Andreas Ryding, Guillaume Antoniotti, Pierre-Alexis Ulbrich, Loïc Sattler, Ed Barrow, Géraldine Schwarz, Virgile Stein, François Mancini, Daniel Vallot, Lucille Gonthier, Sandrine Sanos, Benjamin Krongrad, Cyril Mégret, Alan Gac, Soledad Garavelli, Romain Magnan, Alexandra Kolbl, Fred Fredovitch Bourdil, Paula Moon, Mumuni Ra, Charles Nervegna, Addison Karl, Isabel Mosquera Guerreiro, Xavier Polycarpe, Barbara Keen, Emmanuel Fraudin, Oryanne Le-long Du-four, Justin Person, Morvan Boury, Gry Ulverud, Nicolas Dedye, Perrine La Fraicheur, Ben Raine, Federica Mancini, Gilad Shachar, Nathalie Laussucq, Birgitta Olsén Ryding, Mario Gonzalez, Fräulein Lulu, Mathieu Elhadad, Jean-Christophe Vareille, Andrea Wahaha, Cat Blue, Géraldine Doussier, Xavier Jamaux, Nico US, Sebastian Koch, Adrian Buendia, Sophie Navis, Clémence Villemont, Isa Moreau, Marc Seestaedt, Bilbo Saruj Berlin, Wolf Krill de Capello, Ilja Pohland, Thomas Sevet, Roro Raph, François Capdeville, Greg LaMinve, Marc Winter, Daniela Macé Rossiter show more »