French composer René Aubry releases his 25th album, “I Sing My Song”.

René Aubry (Remiremont, 1956) is a French composer and self-taught guitarist, known mainly for his compositions for dance, theatre and film. An admirer of Leonard Cohen, Philip Glass and the Greek composer Mános Hatzidákis, his meeting in 1978 with the American choreographer, naturalised French, Carolyn Carlson, changed his life: he fell in love both with the dancer and choreographer and with dance, and became her husband and father of her son Alexis, and composer for several years of the scores for her ballet, which he later extended to works by Pina Bausch or the amazing puppet shows for adults by Philippe Genty. He has also scored themes for films by Wim Wenders (Pina) or Paolo Sorrentino (One Man Too Many)… as well as a large collection of scores for children’s cartoon films by Magic Light Pictures (The Gruffalo, Zog, etc.).

His relationship with Carlson also marked the starting point of his style: it was she who put him on the trail of the music of Philip Glass, Steve Reich or John Surman, influential, although not defining, in his compositions. With an extensive discography behind him, he is not, however, a famous musician: in fact, his compositions are played in the kind of programmes in which the composer goes unnoticed. In his case, at the inauguration of the Zaragoza Expo 2008, dedicated to water and sustainable development, or as a musical setting for television programmes.

His new album, I Sing My Song, the twenty-fifth to his name, was released on 29 April, International Dance Day, on the Music Box Publishing label. In addition to thirteen instrumental pieces, the album includes two sung by Aubry himself, It’s Alright and I Sing My Song, with texts written by Carolyn Carlson. His music, with classical harmonies and modern arrangements, has the melancholic and naïve tone that we recognise in composers such as Pascal Comelade or the late Simon Jeffes, founder of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra.

In his short pieces – between two and three minutes long – he always develops evanescent atmospheres in the centre of which shine clear and adhesive melodies. An extraordinary simplicity with which he creates pieces of timeless beauty that are not cloying and that we could define as a 21st century translation of Satie’s furniture music, with the addition of a dash of Mediterranean-rooted folk music.