Olivier Manchon is a violinist. He can play the viola as well.
He plays the guitar too and some piano and the musical saw. He recently quit playing the glockenspiel and the melodica due to the over usage of both these instruments eventhough his skills on those 2 instruments were far superior than anyone on the planet. None the less, his ability to play country fiddle songs are not super cool at all but Olivier fakes it occasionally.
He is a member of Clare and the Reasons because he is married to the lead singer Clare.
The Reasons are really cool and so is Clare who is his wife because she's beautiful.
He plays with a bunch of people in NY and sometimes in other cities too but he has 2 cats, one named Ella Fitzgerald and one named Babette who is far crazier than Ella Fitzgerald the grey one.
He eats a lot of fish, especially raw and so do the cats if they could order from restaurants.
He eats croissants in Tokyo and eats sushi in NY but he likes beer in a glass, not from the bottle, especially Guiness and Boddington's which are his favorite.
Recently, he has not written a lot of music for no good reason but this is about to change.
In fact, it's not exactly true because he wrote arrangements for the new "Clare and the Reasons" album called "The Movie" which everyone should be proud of especially if they played on it.
He has an old album out called "En Route..." which is pretty good for jazz on the violin.
His friends Lionel Loueke, Massimo Biolcati and Ferenc Nemeth play on it.
Recently, Olivier is not playing too much jazz at all.
In fact, he's playing in Spring Awakening, the broadway musical with the music by Duncan Sheik. It's really fun and you should go see it.
Nowadays, Olivier has a new band called The Miniature Chamber Orchestra because it's sort of chamber music and they're playing in pretty small venues where they can hardly fit.
There are people involved in it.
Their names are Alan Hampton the bass player, Hiroko Taguchi the viola player, Chris Hoffman the cello player and John Ellis the clarinet saxophone player and Hideaki Aomori the other super clarinetter. Also, Gregoire Maret the harmonica player plays harmonica too.
In Fact, the first album is ALMOST READY and you can even hear a few songs here, on THISSPACE.
In the meantime, come see the "Miniature" whenever you can. It's been said about them :" Wow... Amazing...hey man...amazing...man" by a dude after a show outside of Barbes.
He's also doing some string quartet music with his friends Rob, Marla and Maria and it's fun because then they get to play with Sufjan Stevens and My Brightest Diamond. He likes Emily Haines and the Soft Skeletons with whom he has played twice. However, there are a lot of bands that he has not played with and that he does not like.
On a different note, let's not forget also that Olivier (sometimes called Oliver on occasion because of numerous misprints) is playing on occasion some Hot Club music... you know... the Django Reinhardt kind of music with Stephane Grappelli.
In the past he played with some cool people and some mean ones too but right now, everything is pretty good except that you can't really tell what's gonna happen next.
Alex Venguer is Olivier's best mexican friend.
Needless to say, France should have won that World Cup Final game in 2006 but the Italians are cool in general, even if they shouldn't win football games against France which they usually don't.
Of course, Olivier has a normal website too but it's not working.
How are you? I just got the T-shirts I ordered for the NYC Musical Saw Festival. I'm excited about the logo: What do you think? I hope you can join us at the festival on Saturday, July 18th, 2pm at Trinity Church, 31-18 37th street, Astoria (Queens), NYC.
Salut Olivier Je suis un pote a Lionel aussi. Bravo Spring Awakening c'est tres bien. Duncan est un pratiquant bouddhiste de LA comme nous. Nous on brouille les pistes avec notre nouveau genre de musique, le GYPSYBILLY. Aux plaisir de se renconter Merci Fabrice
thanks for the add!! sounds great your music, you could sing, you have a beautiful voice, i like when you sing with clare. wish you all the best in your record!!!!
Hello Olivier ! Howdoyudo ?? J' ecoutais le disque de Clare et pui en lisant sa bio , je t' ai retrouvé... J espere que tu vas bien Des concerts prévus à Paris dans votre tournée ??
Helas mon petit manchon... eh bien c'est un comble, il se trouve que je suis a niouyyorque du 19 au 23... comment faire??? se voir a niouyyorque peut-etre???
C'est vraiment super ce que tu fais !!! J'ai beaucoup aimé le groove de "Third" et l'arrangement sur "Feline Leukemia". Fais moi signe quand l'album sort et aussi quand tu passes par chez moi à Vancouver... Lionel sera là le 20...
