Christine Abdelnour

Born in 1978, Christine lives in France but is of Lebanese origin.  After discovering improvised music in 1997 she began a process of self-taught study and sound experimentation using the alto saxophone.

In a few years, she has developed a very unique language, open to micro-tonality and contemporary techniques. Far from any narrative effects, her playing is close to electronic music. She approaches sound as a malleable material, rich in concrete textures which combines breath, silence and immersive sounds. Playing with the effects of compression and expansion of sound, she likes to brush against the limits of sound in a quest for electrical pressure, saturation, acoustic distortions or feedback.

In concert, thanks to a very focus listening, Christine Abdelnour engages herself instinctively and with an immediate availability in order to generate an intimate but shared space. The inside and the outside merges together to reveal an altered reality through sounds and its displacements. The result is a music of great intensity which questions the concept of form, rhythm, texture, balance, harmony or energy.

Her work evolves with musicians such as Andy Moor, Magda Mayas, Chris Corsano, Eric Chenaux, Pascal Battus, Andrea Neumann, Joachim Nordwall, David Stackenas, Sven-Ake Johannson and many others.

Christine has published more than fifteen CDs and has collaborated with different artists from the visual arts, dance, theater and poetry.

Since a few years, through private or collective masterclasses, Christine Abdelnour shares her knowledge and findings from technicalities of specific sound production to methods for applying this palette of sounds in a musical context.

For more than twenty years, Christine Abdelnour has performed in concert in different venues and festivals in France and internationally: Les Instants Chavirés, Sonic Protest Festival, la Muse En Circuit, GMEA, Willisau Festival (CH), Reina Sofia Museum (Madrid), Irtijal (Lebanon), Skanu Mezs (Latvia), Ruhrtriennale (Essen), Angelica Festival (Italy), Ultima Festival (Norway), Ideal Festival (Sweden), Sound Desobediance (Slovenia), Unlimited festival (Austria), A l’Arme Festival (Berlin), Interpretation Festival (Prague), Soundout Festival (Australia), Hit Parade Festival (Canada), Seattle Improvised Festival (USA) etc.