Chilly Gonzales, Professors Jarvis Cocker, Peaches and Socalled are hard at work viewing almost 700 videos from 63 countries on 5 continents. Difficult choices will need to be made.
Lisa Kainde Diaz of Ibeyi is on tour and couldn’t make the viewing session. But she is hard at work making her short list suggestions!
After hours of watching and deliberating, and re-watching and re-deliberating, the Gonzervatory professors are pleased to have selected the following applicants for the Gonzervatory SHORT LIST.
Watch all their videos on this SHORTLIST PLAYLIST
Who would YOU choose as a FINALIST?
SHORT LIST IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER
Aitua
Alain Legagneur
Andrés Landon
DadalĂș
Dalebi
Fat Tony
Frida Split
Isla Ratcliff
Jean Despax
Justin Guzzwell
Kasera
Kato Change
Maal
Natalia Spiner
Ramataupia
Raphael Meinhart
Rose Ford
Russell Louder
The Grand Mess
Van Ludo
Yuliano Acri
Chilly Gonzales, Professors Socalled, Peaches and Jarvis Cocker viewed 700 videos from 63 countries on 5 continents. Prof. Lisa Kainde Diaz of Ibeyi is on tour and sent in her suggestions. Difficult Decisions had to be made.
Check out the shortlisted applicants’ videos here.
Big Thanks to the HUNDREDS of applicants! Gonzo and his fellow professors Socalled, Peaches, Jarvis Cocker, and Lisa Kainde Diaz from Ibeyi are already at work looking for their students. Who would YOU invite??
Watch all the applicants’ videos in our playlist below.
A concert is worth a hundred rehearsals. The adrenalin alone is a force-multiplier of learning. The threat of embarrassment, the shadow of failure, the fog of unresolved tension. But also – the unexpected laugh where you didnât mean a joke, the consensus that leads to mid-song applause, the feeling of musical time simply stopping⊠None of this can happen while you sit alone in a studio or at your instrument. Music is communication, so we prepare to communicate. Before a concert, we repeat, rehearse, we make a plan, but we KNOW we will tear up the plan.
We need the plan, but then we donât need the plan.
Six performers will meet me in Paris. We will spend 8 days making these meticulous plans on a metaphorical sheet of paper. Come join us at the Trianon, and watch us tear up that sheet of paper. Come join us for 100 rehearsals in 2 hours.
TICKET LINKS HERE :
https://www.letrianon.fr/fr/programme/the-gonzervatory/convocation
https://www.letrianon.fr/fr/programme/the-gonzervatory/graduation
(Thank You, from left to right, to Matilda Abraham, Angus Tarnawsky, Casey Mq, Teacher Assistant Socalled, Dani Shivers – Joona Samuel)
The Gonzervatory is now officially a reality.
The day of the announcement, I was curious to see the feedback on Twitter. I couldnât help but notice that the few dozen likes we had accrued were vastly outnumbered by my impulsive retweet of the statement âChilly Gonzales always looks like he got out of the shower.â (hat tip to Twitter user @whatyouseyr).
Unsurprisingly, snark travels faster than heart. At first I felt disappointed, and a little dirty. One might say I needed a shower. But waitâŠMy bathrobe-plus-slicked-back-hair look is indeed my trademark, featured prominently in the Gonzervatory video. And this prompted a Twitter-perfect response that spread further than my initial, idealistic plea. If the music business is about branding now (as opposed to record sales), this random guyâs tweet represented a triumph of snarky marketing.#snarketing.
And isnât this the kind of thinking I want to share with my Gonzervatorians? Havenât I consistently given advice to my musician friends to project a cartoon-character-esque visual identity? This retweet may be proof of the power of looking at yourself through the eyes of the audience. This is a power that can be used for good, a power that can be shared.
(c)Alexandre Isard
We were supposed to launch The Gonzervatory tomorrow.
But in a classic plot twist, an older version of our press release somehow found its way to hipster blog Stereogum, who posted it a day early. They even mention that the link (for applying to my new all-expenses-paid residential musical workshop) wasnât working properly. I almost screamed at my computer screen: âOf course it doesnât work, itâs not supposed to work until tomorrow.â
But this is part of launching new projects in 2017âŠ.months of planning followed by laptop screaming.
Once I calmed down, we simply decided to move the announcement ahead by a day.
But The Gonzervatory has actually involved years, not months, of planning. Back in 2004 when I released Solo Piano, I was looking for a way to engage my audience in relation to this quieter, more reflective musical direction.
I remembered being a kid, making music with my older brother, playing happy songs in a sad way, replacing the happy major chords with darker, minor ones…
So I tested out a stage routine in which I played Happy Birthday in a minor key, punctuated by the line âanother year has gone by, motherfuckerâ. Breakthrough! It killed.
Since then, I made different attempts at sharing my view of music as a kind of a toy.
The Gonzervatory is somehow the human manifestation of my major – minor routine, a place to play with this toy and to take it apart – the direct transmission of a musical vision to younger and hungrier musicians.
Who knows how many will actually apply? Is my dream of forming a kind of musical X-men with me as Professor X going to actually WORK?
Once the fucking link works, weâll find out!
#Gonzervatory Applications are now CLOSED.
Big Thanks to the HUNDREDS of applicants!
Gonzo and his fellow professors Socalled, Peaches, Jarvis Cocker and Lisa Kainde Diaz from Ibeyi now hard at work selecting their students.
Watch all the Applicants here :
Grammy Award-Âwinning entertainer and composer Chilly Gonzales is CALLING ALL PERFORMING MUSICIANS!
Join him in Paris to study at The Gonzervatory, an 8-day residential music performance workshop. Six selected students will win an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris for a week of intensive coaching, masterclasses and rehearsals, living together in musical immersion and culminating in a public concert led by Chilly Gonzales himself.
WHO CAN APPLY
The Gonzervatory is open to EVERY MUSICIAN 18 OR OLDER, FROM ALL PARTS OF THE GLOBE, WHO WRITE AND PERFORM THEIR OWN MATERIAL, REGARDLESS OF LEVEL OF EXPERIENCE, LANGUAGE, INSTRUMENT… composing instrumentalists, singer-Âsongwriters, rappers, producers… APPLY NOW, YOU HAVE AS GOOD A CHANCE AS ANYONE ELSE!
Together we will explore Musical Humanism, audience psychology and what it means to be a performing musician in 2018.
THE WORKSHOP
The studentsâ first meeting with Chilly Gonzales will be ⊠on stage!
The Convocation Concert at Le Trianon theatre in Paris on Thursday 26 April 2018 marks the start of the workshop and introduces each student to the theatre and web audiences.
During the week, each day starts with one-on-one coaching sessions with Gonzo, followed by afternoon masterclasses with special guests, selected from his musical friends and collaborators.
Each evening the students rehearse together, learning and practicing each otherâs songs for the Graduation Concert led by Chilly Gonzales himself, also at Le Trianon on Friday 4 May 2018.
THE LOCATION
The Gonzervatory workshop takes place at the Loft, a musical home created in partnership with Sonos and Steinway & Sons in Paris, France.
The Convocation & Graduation concerts will take place at Le Trianon in Paris.
The experience, with all its inevitable struggles and triumphs, will be documented and shared with viewers all over the world. Livestreams of both of the concerts, daily video debriefs, as well as an online fanzine of photos, illustrations and essay pieces, will allow audiences to witness personal exchanges in real time and develop an emotional investment in the participantsâ musical progress.
DATES
Entry Deadline:Â 1 December 2017 11:59PM London Time (GMT)
Semi-finalists announced: Â 15 December 2017
Finalists announced: 10 January 2018
Convocation Concert:Â 26 April 2018Â 8:00 p.m.
Workshop: 27 April – 4 May 2018
Graduation Concert: 4 May 2018Â 8:00 p.m.
“Heâs the teacher you wished you’d had as a kid: a showoff who nevertheless understands your panic and has strategies at his disposal to relieve it.” â The Guardian
“A mad professor of music” â Resident Advisor
“The virtuoso provides his magic touch to a new generation of upand- coming musicians”â Exclaim! Magazine
THE GONZERVATORY â WHY?
âGrowing up, I had a complex relationship with studying music. I wanted to be inspired and challenged, not âtaughtâ. Technical knowledge came quickly, but I struggled to express my feelings in a direct but playful way. Iâve seen so many trained musicians miss out on instinctive musical joy, while those who are self-
taught donât know how to systematically improve their skills. Musicians shouldnât have to choose between fun and knowledge, itâs a false choice. The Gonzervatory is a place for young musicians to find and strengthen their musical voice, to journey deeper into the emotions and science of their art.â
Chilly Gonzales, 2017
Over the course of his career, Chilly Gonzales has pulled back the curtain on how music works.
On stage, his now classic âMajor-Minorâ routine, where he plays Happy Birthday or Chariots of Fire in a minor key to demonstrate the emotional impact of each key, has the audience laughing and learning all at once. Another routine sees Gonzales select a member of the audience to join him on stage and, in less than 3 minutes, they write a spontaneous piece built on the simple repetition of 3 notes plus 1 tiny variation. His most recent tour saw him breakdown the Beatlesâ Eleanor Rigby in to its component parts, before using a string quartet as a real-life sampler to show how hip-hop, pop and classical music are not so distant relatives. The success of these concert routines led to production of the From Major to Minor live DVD, an hour-long masterclass concert where Chilly Gonzales deals with the principle elements of music theory, including rhythm (featuring special guests Daft Punk) and melody (featuring special guest Feist).
Chilly Gonzales’ teaching also takes the form of best-selling book Re-Introduction Etudes: 24 easy-to-master, fun-to-play piano pieces specifically designed to unlock musical mysteries for those who gave it up. The book is an antidote to the stale, cheesy, ârinky-dinkâ repertoire most student pianists are forced to play, and aims to restore some fun into the learning process.
Gonzalesâ most recent forays into education are through his Pop Music Masterclasses, in which he breaks down the musical elements of current and classic pop hits (Under Pressure by Queen & David Bowie, Shake It Off by Taylor Swift, or Drake’s Hold OnâŠ) in 3-4 minute videos which have to date been viewed several hundred thousand times on YouTube, and the Apple Music Beats1 radio show Music’s Cool with Chilly Gonzales where his unique analysis introduces listeners the theory and the fun of entire musical genres through the work of one exemplary artist (Daft Punk for electronic music, Weezer for Indie RockâŠ) in a 2-hour monthly broadcast.
Through all of these endeavors, Chilly Gonzales gained a reputation as a âmusical scientistâ in addition to his renown as a composer and performer, penning several newspaper and magazine opinion pieces and being called upon by the likes of Apple Musicâs Beats 1, BBC Radio 1 in the UK, 1Live in Germany, and the CBC in Canada to comment upon our ever-expanding musical universe.
The Gonzervatory workshop is a result of all of the foregoing for the man whose mission it is to spread Musical Humanism: an ongoing and constant search for the techniques and aesthetics that connect musical eras and genres.
Gonzo’s famous Bechstein piano leaving home for the studio today…
A unique collaboration between Jarvis Cocker and Chilly Gonzales, Room 29 asks what the ghosts of Hollywoodâs golden age can tell us about how we came to be where we are today.
Order here
BERLIN … where it all began…
kitty-yo single “Let’s Groove Again” became an immediate dancefloor hit upon its 1999 release
Hip hop mode. Collaborations by Peaches, Digital Hardcore chaps Bomb 20, Patric Catani and Paul PM
« The great Gonzoâs first pop album, a record of such sparkling joy that it makes that S Club Juniors single look like one of Thom Yorkeâs suicide poems. Gonzo fans will be aware of his repertoire since European electro whimsy, piano and balladry were all stirred and twisted on his full length debut « Ăber Alles », while digital hardcore, hip-hop, mop-styled craziness and snoop-derived rhyme patterns were all fucked up on the classic follow up âThe Entertainistâ. And here, as was hoped, the two meet » www.playlouder.com
âZâ is a mutated « Best of » : Chilly Gonzales covering Chilly Gonzales by re-recording his own songs from scratch in new styles, with new guests and with all new vocals and music. Guests Feist, Peaches, Paul PM, Taylor Savvy, Louie Austen and Princess Superstar
Self Declared President of the Berlin Underground
Daft Punk, Björk, Placebo and Chet Baker solo piano “remakes”
David Bowie’s Meltdown festival
Iggy Pop’s “Motor Inn”
16 piano themes for left hand accompaniment and right hand melody.
125 000 fans love this record
Let It Die was welcomed as one of the best Canadian pop albums of 2004, and collected three Juno Award nominations in 2005 âwinning Best Alternative Album and Best New Artist. Let It Die was nominated once again in the 2006 Juno Awards; this time for “Inside and Out” as Single of the Year.
Double DVD, directed by Ninja Pleasure, with the surrealist âMaster Classâ by Professor Gonzales, teaching music theory to real students taken from the audience as well as his friends, featuring Jamie Lidell & Feist on “Melody” and Daft Punk on “Rhythm”, the âWhite Gloves Concertâ featuring Jamie Lidell, Mocky and Feist performing each others’ songs, followed by Chilly Gonzales concert footage, videos, television interviews and the Paris Nuits Blanches
The Reminder won 3Â Juno Awards in 2008 including Best Pop Album of the Year and Best Album of the Year. It was also nominated for 4 Grammys including Best Producer and Best Album at the 50th Grammy Awards.
1 500 000 copies have been sold
The misunderstood masterpiece
To fully satisfy the insatiable ambition of Gonzales, only one thing was left to do and he did it.
May 16â18, 2009 Gonzales broke the Guinness World Record for the longest solo concert⊠by playing 27 hours 3 minutes 44 seconds of piano, over 200 different songs, in a marathon concert at film director Claude Lelouchâs CinĂ© 13 Theatre in Paris.
A record 85 000 people from all over the world tuned in to the live webcast, that became the days n° 2 âtwitter trendâ.
An offer to co-write a book of music inspired by recipes inspired by music, with Pierre Gagnaire, the 3 star chef and owner of Londonâs Sketch and Parisâ Le restaurant de Pierre Gagnaire.
In 2009 Gonzo accepted several of the more interesting offers that came his way in the wake of this new found fame. Offers to incarnate Serge Gainsbourg, to play his music for the soundtrack â and his hands for the screen â in the much anticipated first feature film of renowned comic book artist Johann Sfar.
Ivory Tower is an existential sports comedy, a story of two brothers and their unhealthy rivalry over both the chessboard and a woman.
“Mention Speciale du Jury” Filmmakers of the Present Competition Locarno Internation Film Festival 2010
The film was co-written by Gonzo and French director and screenwriter CĂ©line Sciamma. It stars a variety of Canadian-born musicians, including Gonzales himself, Peaches, Feist and Tiga.
Music by Chilly Gonzales and Boys Noize
Directed by Adam Traynor
“THE BEST PIANO-DRIVEN SLICE OF DISCO IN 10 YEARS” – ROUGH TRADE SHOPS
Apple’s world-wide IPAD2 campaign with the Ivory Tower single Never Stop
Ivory Tower nominated in Canadian Music Award JUNOs’ BEST ELECTRONIC ALBUM category. Gonzo opens the broadcast in a duo with Drake
“Come and listen to a jerk, talk about how hard he works
Come and be a flirt, I’m an expert, you can wipe off this smirk
Do you like rap ’cause it so happens, I’m so ballin’What I mean is between you and me there’s a gap, don’t fall in”
The Unspeakable Chilly Gonzales is the world’s first rap orchestra album.
Alone for 10 days in Parisâ Studio Pigalle, Chilly Gonzales recorded a handful of songs that had made the short list from a hundred or so melodies written over the eight years that had passed since the release of the now iconic Solo Piano.
Gonzo gets a Grammy: his piano finds itself WITHIN Daft Punkâs Random Access Memories 2013 Album of the Year.
Re-Introduction Etudes: a book of 24 easy-to-master, fun-to-play piano pieces specifically designed to unlock musical mysteries for those who gave it up. The unexpected sheet music hit of summer 2014 inspires 25 000 people to pick up the piano again.
88 KEYS x 808 BEATS. Chilly Gonzales and Boys Noize collaborate on an ethereal piano meets electronica album that comes to life in the first ever concert at Teufelsberg in Berlin, the USAâs graffiti-laden cold war spy station
Music pundits and fans worldwide turn to Gonzo as the musical scientist and great explainer of all things music theory: his web series of POP MUSIC MASTERCLASSES fires up the internet and he anchors documentaries on âClassical Connectionsâ (BBC) and âThe History of Musicâ (Arte).
Chilly Gonzales re-imagines Romantic-era chamber music as today’s addictive pop in new album Chambers. Gestures from rap, ambient, easy listening and the avant-garde co- exist as always in Chilly Gonzalesâ musical universe – this time with strings attached.
Gonzo penns several newspaper and magazine opinion pieces and is called upon by the likes of BBC Radio 1 in the UK, 1Live in Germany, and the CBC in Canada to comment upon our ever- expanding musical universe. Apple Music’s Beats1 broadcasts radio show Music’s Cool with Chilly Gonzales in which Gonzo’s unique analysis introduces listeners the theory and the fun of entire musical genres through the work of one exemplary artist (Daft Punk for electronic music, Weezer for Indie RockâŠ) in a 2-hour monthly broadcast.
Written with Jarvis Cocker, Room 29 is a song-cycle about a Chateau Marmont (LA) hotel room with a piano in it, the first album on Deutsche Grammophon with a “parental advisoryâ logo.
A year of Concerts and other Collaborations: Jarvis Cocker, Kaiser Quartett, Stella Le Page, Joe Flory, Ibeyi, Francesco Tristano, Daniel Hope, Toddla T, Leonard Cohen Tribute, Bugzy Malone and othersâŠ
Gonzo makes a Call to Entry for his very own music school, a residential music performance workshop in Paris, Spring 2018 and Cologne, Fall 2019… 2022 is next. Six selected students win an all-expenses-paid trip for a week of intensive coaching, masterclasses and rehearsals, living together in musical immersion and culminating in public concerts led by Chilly Gonzales himself. Together they will explore Musical Humanism, audience psychology and what it means to be a performing musician in this day and age.
Chilly Gonzales completes the Solo Piano Trilogy. Like any final act, there are complications and consequences, followed by an urgent race to the finish line. Like its predecessors, it’s a mostly happy ending in C major, but there is more dissonance, tension and ambiguity along the way.
Career retrospective documentary premieres in the Panorama Section at Berlin Film Festival. Using Gonzales’ extensive video archive in a rather unorthodox manner, Shut Up and Play the Piano explores his persona by interweaving newly shot interviews and concert scenes with fictional materials of totally different time periods. Reality and fiction blur together on a trip through Chilly Gonzales’ world.
His first book Enya: A Treatise on Unguilty Pleasures is published in October 2020. In dazzling, erudite prose Gonzales delves beyond her innumerable gold discs and millions of fans to excavate his own enthusiasm for Enyaâs singular music as well as the mysterious musician herself, and along the way uncovers new truths about the nature of music, fame, success and the artistic endeavor. In this musical memoir, he asks: Does music have to be smart or does it just need to go straight to the heart?
In Winter 2020, Chilly Gonzales releases A very chilly christmas, his very own Christmas Album. From feudal oldies to newer holiday pop canon, A very chilly christmas surveys a broad scope of seasonal repertoire and sentiment. Thereâs grandeur and solemnity, thereâs austerity and merriment, and thereâs Mariah Carey.
After hearing âConsumedâ for the first time shortly after the albumâs 20th anniversary, Gonzo felt that the recordâs loose use of melody and negative space threatened his musical sensibility. Furthermore, the albumâs unique timing structure and flow fueled his curiosity and pushed him towards an idea of composing accompanying piano pieces (counterparts) for each of the tracks. It would not be a remix. It would be one composer instinctively reacting to – and finding space within â another composers already completed work. As an experiment, Gonzo completed a series of demos and later mentioned it to his friend Tiga, the Turbo Recordings label boss, who as a Plastikman & âConsumedâ fan urged Gonzo to continue and suggested that he reach out to Hawtin.
Consumed (In Key) is released on April 1st 2022 on Turbo Recordings.
Since his track Smothered Mate was chosen as the soundtrack for the French national soccer teamâs World Cup victory, Chilly Gonzales has gradually taken steps towards France. In 2023, his first album entirely written and composed in the language of MoliĂšre: FRENCH KISS.
To make this record, Chilly Gonzales befriended a new generation of French artists, mixing them with long-time friends and one of his heroes, to whom he cedes his place at the piano for the first time.
On the album, Bonnie Banane, Juliette Armanet, Christine Ott, Arielle Dombasle and Teki Latex rub shoulders, under the benevolent eye of Richard Clayderman⊠The velvety and acerbic cover is signed Fabcaro.
Proud to have played piano on new album by Ibeyi!
Chilly Gonzales brings some of the joy back to the lapsed amateur pianist with his Re-Introduction Etudes: a book of 24 easy-to-master, fun-to-play piano pieces specifically designed to unlock musical mysteries for those who gave it up.
Each etude is introduced by a short text, in which Gonzo shares his point of view on scales, explains how melodies are designed, how modern pop harmony works ⊠and divulges his own personal âshortcutsâ. The companion CD of his recordings of the 24 pieces goes a long way to getting the music into the piano studentâs head, so it can then spill out onto the keys and a tear-out poster strategically placed near the piano will inspire the musician in all of you!
Keep an eye out for this amazing album by Francesco Tristano… I’m proud to be a small part of it.
âMusic is in a mealâs tempo, with its thick and thin textures, syncopated rhythms and breaks; hot and cold, a flowing broth…â,
says Pierre Gagnaire.
Hence, it was only natural for chef Pierre Gagnaire and musician Chilly Gonzales to join forces to compose dishes and their corresponding music. The soundtrack (La Bande Originale) inspires and is inspired by the creation of a dish. It is an exceptional adventure that culminates in the joint creative accomplishment of two artists. Through 175 simple recipes to take you from morning to dawn, this is the three Michelin starred chef’s first true cookbook. Coupled with an hour of original music to appreciate the eclecticism, vivacity and colorful humour of the Canadian musician.
