Raphaëlle Brochet
It is very rare that one has the pleasure of meeting a true artist. Raphaelle Brochet’s never ending journey into the world of global performing arts and music has lead to her becoming a truly powerful and inspiring performer. Her versatility and dedication to learn have all fed into her unique sound. Born to musician parents, Raphaëlle grew up in surrounded by jazz, destined to be an artist. She started her career at the age of 17 by recording an album with Floris Nico-Bunink (Mingus, Billy Holliday) under the label Daybreak. Her studies began at the Poitiers Conservatory in France where she studied the piano for three years.
She then went to further her education in Jazz Performance studies in France (Niort Conservatory, Strasbourg Conservatory, Paris XI Conservatory and Nantes Conservatory) and in Canada (University of Montreal) for 7 years after. She graduated from Nantes Conservatory in Jazz Performance in 2006. It was here that her love for the Indian form of Carnatic music seeped into her life. She received a full scholarship from the Wesleyan University and spent time shuttling between India and the USA where she worked with her teachers, Smt Sarada Thota (India) and Balraj Balasubrahmanyan (USA) for 12 years until she felt she had achieved a certain level of mastery over her technique. She also worked on the rhythmic system in Carnatic or Konnakol as it is more commonly known with the late Ghatam Govindarajan (India) and David Nelson (USA) for five years. She graduated from Wesleyan with a Masters in Ethnomusicology. Her hunger for new influences also took her to a completely different part of the world studying Persian music with Fariba Davoodi (Iran) –for about a month, and Babak Towhidi (Canada) for a couple of years in 2006. Raphaelle’s journey into the arts didn’t stop at just music. Her interest in Dance led her to do Contemporary Dance Studies at the Poitiers Conservatory (France) for 7 years, Flamenco with Isabel Pemartin (France) for a year, Ghanaian Dance with Iddrisu Saaka (USA) for a year and a short stint in Balinese Dance with Anom Putra (Bali) for a month. She now teaches and performs across the globe in places like: The Swarnabhoomi Academy of Music (South India), ICOM Berklee Asia (Kuala Lumpur), Paris Sorbonne (France), the Urban School of San Francisco (US) and more.
