Photo credit: © Francis Schrauwen
Born in 1987, Stéphanie Scultore is a French vocal artist, singer, author, composer, actress and teacher. She began music at a very young age, first playing the piano then the guitar, and studied jazz singing at the JAM in Montpellier while she became interested in theatre and performing arts traditions.
She then left for Paris, where she entered Marc Ernotte's class at the Conservatoire d'art dramatique (Paris VIIIème) and participated in parallel in numerous courses, many of which took place at the Cartoucherie of Vincennes and were directed by directors and teachers that she admires (Ariane Mnouchkine, Yoshi Oida, Philippe Hottier, Tapa Sudanna, Yves Sioui-Durant and Catherine Joncas of the Compagnie Ondinook) before entering the INSAS (Brussels) to learn directing in 2010.
Eager to delve into the roots of the performing arts and the essential link between traditional, popular and sacred aspects, her Mediterranean origins (born in Nîmes in the south of France to a family of Italian, Portuguese and North African descent) provide her with a vast field of inspiration.
Attached on the one hand to the world of childhood and in search of a language that is both poetic and direct, familiar, she developed during her studies writing projects similar to the autofiction "Manou je t'aime" (radio), "Un été à Noël" (theatre) in which she tried to translate by its musicality, its accents, its rhythms and its colours, a "family language", the fruit of the mixtures from which she comes from.
The world of sounds remaining her "world of predilection", music (re)took little by little an essential place in her practice. She took jazz singing lessons with Chrystel Wautier and at the Lemmensinstituut with Lynn Cassiers. Jazz made her plunge into Brazilian music, first the bossa nova and then samba, choro and all the Brazilian popular and traditional music.
In 2016 she met Matteo Carola (guitarist) who had just returned from Brazil and together with Mathieu Robert (soprano saxophonist) and Falk Schrauwen (percussionist) they created the quartet ROSA. Gathered around Brazilian popular music and their own compositions and texts, they advocate together a popular poetry and wish to pay a tribute through the Brazilian repertoire and the French and Portuguese language, to an acoustic music, demanding while being much popular and federative.
The same year she made a first trip to Brazil, to Rio, where she studied with the singer Nina Wirtti mainly, but also with the singer Ronaldo Gonçalves and took some guitar and percussion lessons. It was also during this trip that she met the cavaquinist and painter João Callado, author of the paintings illustrating ROSA's new album "Chorando Sim" released in October 2019 on the Bossa Flor label. Half compositions - half adaptations, it is recorded and mixed by Rudy Coclet.
Curious to deepen her vocal work in a more global approach of the body and internal mechanisms, she followed training courses in the Feldenkreiss method with Sylvie Storme and François Combeau which opened new perspectives of exploration. In this quest and adventure through body and voice, she was initiated to Capoeira Angola in 2019 during a new trip to Rio de Janeiro by Mestre Rodgerio. Immediately passionate and very inspired by this art, her sounds, this new universe where the popular and the sacred intermingle and play together, to the sound of the berimbau, she continues this practice in Brussels with Charel Perêrê d'Angoleiros do Mar.
We find her in several musical projects notably in the quartet ROSA with whom she created several projects: "A viagem" (EP album), "ROSA canta Cartola", "ROSA in the middle of guitars" in partnership with the guitarist Sandrine Vuidart and her 24 students of classical guitar, "Chorando Sim" their new album, and a new project in progress ... But also in some theatrical and performative projects, and as such is part of the team for the next choreographic creation of Adele Vandroth "Fatras".
Finally, Stéphanie also teaches group and individual singing for adults and children, vocal work, especially for actors and is in charge of the Vocal Training Workshop at Cours Florent in Brussels since 2018. In all the work she undertakes (as an artist or teacher) music always holds a fundamental place for its universal character and its ability to speak and bring people together across all divides.
Her link with the dynamic Bossa Flor is on the one hand via the musical programming (and the label) of the association, and on the other hand via the album project "Brassens dans tous ses états" in which she records several tracks in duo with Philippe Quevauviller and other musicians.