graindelavoix / Björn Schmelzer
graindelavoix is a Belgian artist collective founded in 1999 by Björn Schmelzer. Schmelzer brings together singers and musicians who are ready to experiment in the realm between performance and creation. Graindelavoix is fascinated by voices that move beyond the world of communication, that no longer make a statement but are the pure expression of their origins: the grainy, the intense, the instinctual. The combination of notation and what escapes it the main reason for graindelavoix's interest in early music: the higher awareness and ability that the performer brings to the piece (ornamentation, improvisation, gestures). The material includes Franco-Flemish polyphony, the art of the lament, and machicotage (French ornamentation of Gregorian chant) and other lost styles of ornamentation as well as a Mediterranean performance traditions, dynamics from late scholasticism, and much more. graindelavoix's performances (concerts and music theater productions) are the result of an extensive process of work and research.
Björn Schmelzer, born in 1975 in Antwerp, Belgium, is an ethnomusicologist and anthropologist. He combines both interests in his academic and artistic activity, which focuses primarily on the style and function of ornamentation in Mediterranean and Western music from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance and the Baroque. For his work with graindelavoix, Schemlzer was named "Musician of the Year" in 2009 by the Belgian Music Press Association. Schmezler regularly publishes essays, and is currently working with graindelavoix on a new piece that explores the dynamics and intensity of late Gothic music.
graindelavoix is a special guest at the music center De Bijloke in Ghent (Belgium) and has been continuously funded by the Flemish government since 2010. Their CDs are released exclusively by Glossamusic and have all received prominent international prizes.