For such achievement, did we have to extend the boundaries they already reached? Why always six percussionists? What is our mission both in the musical aspect and the social aspect? How to locate ourselves in the contemporary musical spectrum? What is our point of view on contemporary creations? The group keeps on growing. The actual team is the achievement of more than 15 years of common experience inherited from the members who founded the group.

Nowadays, we adopt a new angle when playing the works created by our seniors. With this new attitude, we rediscovered a whole new patrimony and made an inventory out of it.

We have conducted a deeper formal insight on the percussion recital itself, and further expanded it to the domain of contemporary music concert in order to renew the music’s spirit, its discourse, and its presentation. It is necessary for us to invest in new places to modify the relation with the audience in both audio and visual terms. Equally, the importance of musical gesture is fundamental. In fact, the gest made by the musicians themselves could spillover in other associated artistic forms, such as theater, dance, video, cinema…
2000, combination with theatrical piece “Même soir” of composer Heiner Gœbbels.
2002 combination with a movie, “Le Scorpion” of Martin Matalon, and the movie “L’âge d’or” of Luis Bunuel.
2005 combination with Alexandros Markéas’ video.
2007 cooperation with choreographer Michèle Noiret and composer François Paris in the dance piece “les Arpenteurs”
2008 cooperation with composer Mauro Lanza in a video, “Descrizione del diluvo” made by Paolo Pachini.
2010 the Theater with Michaël Jarrell.

Another element of response is the forming of partnerships with other cultural structures, such as: the Abby of Royaumont, the National Stage of Cergy-Pontoise, the Museum of Modern Art of Strasburg, the Manufacture at Colmar, the Music Festival at Marseille… these precious relations allow a better long-lasting result in the work we are foreseeing.

The residences for artists in our premises can assist them in their work of creation. Young composers remain our priority in our artistic approach.

We also favor the development of new technologies as we associate ourselves with National Centers of Musical Creation and research centers, such as CIRM, GMEM, GRAME, IRCAM and so on.

We also stage up periodical concerts that target young audience and also organize pedagogical activities. For us, percussion music means more than any other form of music because it plays the role of intermediary between oral music and written music and it also favors moments of formation, of awareness and of sharing.
2007 piece created for young audience: “Le Petit Bossu” of James Wood / Catriona Morrison


Thus, an appointment is set in 2012 for half a century of percussion music.
Our story goes on…

Strasbourg 1961... Six classically trained young musicians (Bernard Balet, Jean Batigne, Lucien Droeller, Jean-Paul Finkbeiner, Claude Ricou and Georges Van Gucht) played with the Strasbourg Orchestra under Ernest Bour and with the Orchestra of the ORTF (French Radio) under Charles Bruck. Both conductors show creative inventiveness and enterprise and feature many contemporary pieces in their repertory (including P. Boulez, O. Messiaen, K. Penderecki, etc).

With Germany nearby and its active role in the world of music, notably the Festivals of Darmstadt and Donaueschigen and having Pierre Boulez in Baden Baden has had a marked impact on the creativity of Les Percussions de Strasbourg.

Inspired by the strong forces prevailing in the musical world during the latter half of the 20th century, our six musicians forged a keen desire to create a percussion ensemble with its own tailored repertory of chamber music to imbue its wide range of Western, Oriental and African instruments with a totally modern significance. In 1962 they paved the way by setting up and performing as the Groupe Instrumental à Percussion which was later to become Les Percussions de Strasbourg. Between 1963 and 1966 Gabriel Bouchet replaced Lucien Droeller and Detleff Kieffer took over from Bernard Balet.
Their formation quickly brought about a fresh repertory with works dedicated to them by Messiaen, Serocki, Kabelac, Xenakis, Mâche, Dufourt and others.

In 1967 the six performed Ionisation by Edgar Varèse with his prior approval as the score provided for 13 percussionists. They carried this off with musical mastery and dramatic "brio" - the performance was a hailed of succes and il opened the doors to a hitherto unprecedented musical "genre".