Serge Utgé-Royo

French author, composer and performer of Catalan and Castilian origins, Serge Utgé-Royo was born in Paris on June 22, 1947. Trained as a guitarist, he sang on jazz pianist François Tusques' album Ça Branle Dans le Manche in 1975, before recording Volume 1 and Volume 2 under his own name for the Pragmaphone label, under the artistic direction of Jef Gilson. Between jazz, folk and traditional Latin music, Serge Utgé-Royo settled in Liège (Belgium) in 1980, and five years later recorded Quartiers de Couleurs... Volume 3, on which he plays the Chilean bombo and is accompanied by a team of musicians including various strings, piano, saxophone and accordion. His audience grew with his many concerts and festival appearances. In addition to his stage appearances in Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill's Opéra de quat' sous (1988-1990) and other plays and films, and the writing of several collections of poetry, the singer and guitarist recorded the albums Les Cités du Soleil (1989), Chansons d'Hier Soir... (1991), Cinq Cents Hivers (1997), the triptych Contrechants de Ma Mémoire illustrated by Tardi (1999-2008), the 3rd volume of which won the Académie Charles-Cros, then Ibéricas (2001), Les Diamants de l'Été (2003), the musical tale L'Arc-en-Ciel des Hommes (2005) and Traces Publiques (2009), on which he is accompanied on piano by his musical director Léo Nissim. In 2011, in collaboration with the La Mémoire et la Mer label, he paid tribute to Matthieu Ferré's father in Serge Utgé-Royo Chante Léo Ferré - D'Amour et de Révolte. The following year saw the release of L'Espoir Têtu, followed by Memorias Ibéricas - Cantar Para los Míos, a collection of revolutionary songs performed in Catalan, and Longue Mémoire (2019), all published by Édito Musiques, the label that has distributed him since 2003. 2021 sees the release of the double live album Trio Utgé-Royo at Le Triton, with regular partners Léo Nissim (piano) and Jean My Truong (drums).