Biography
Read my Story
I’m Augustin d’Assignies
Born in 1981, Augustin began playing the piano at the age of 7 and learned, before any musical theory, the art of gesture and the taste for sound. From the age of 18, his thirst for knowledge led him to follow courses of musical studies throughout Paris, from the American School to the National Superior Conservatory through various municipal conservatories, increasing the number of diplomas and certificates of studies in musical training. , jazz, writing, acoustics, orchestration, analysis, Indian music, ethnomusicology, or even image music. He then lives on the money he earns by playing jazz standards in the (very) private parties of a certain Mrs. Hennessy, while Bob Wilson, Lou Reed or Kent Nagano sip their cocktails. This is where he also tastes his first great wines (an important detail for the future).
He then toured as a sideman for several artists of the French music scene, officiating for four years in the pop group Lilly Wood and the Prick. Even if the keyboard takes him a bit (too much) away from his instrument and his favorite style, he tastes the joys of performing in concert in mythical venues and festivals all over the world (from the Zénith in Paris to the Irving Plaza in New York, from Solidays to Eurockéennes). The hustle and bustle of the crowds, the light of the projectors and the roaming of the “tour buses” also make him grow a desire for nature, terroir and sensoriality, which he will seek in the world of viticulture. He plants half a hectare of vines and follows a training course at the wine-growing school in Amboise.
For Augustine, musical generosity and agricultural fertility – from Bach to Bacchus – are both complementary and intimately linked.
“Wine is earthy and sensory; the music, impalpable and emotional. But in both cases, they are living materials that arouse the awakening of the senses and carry within them a mystical, sensual, poetic dimension. In wine as in music, I am constantly looking for character, harmony, agreements, notes! ”
His first solo piano album, “Grapes”, is inspired by this cheerful alchemy. Over the pieces, the refined and colorful music flows, rests and overturns in a sequence of harmonies sometimes modest, sometimes orgiastic. Formulas of baroque inspiration rub shoulders with contemporary polyrhythms, all in a dreamy sound envelope which undoubtedly owes a lot to Debussy. An album that is both research and accessible, which invites you to let yourself be inhabited by a form of serene and dreamlike melancholy.