Informed by more than thirty years of research and playing experience with the concept of “rhythm” in various cultural, social, geographical, philosophical contexts, as well as by the search for ways to develop a better knowledge of rhythm and to offer a universal access to its different branches, PhD researcher Stéphane Galland strives to deepen the numerous elements discovered over the years in his musical practice. Galland can boast of collaborations with some of the most important rhythm masters from different traditions, such as Umayalpuram K. Sivaraman from India, Doudou N'Diaye Rose from Africa, Misirli Ahmet from Turkey, the Chemirani trio from Iran, as well as many other musicians from Bulgaria, Egypt, Syria, Greece and the United States, among others.
Thanks to his dual training as a classical percussionist and jazz drummer as well as his playing experience in a variety of musical contexts (e.g. jazz, contemporary music, funk, non-western music), Galland has been able to develop idiomatic tools to decode every idea behind every specific rhythmic approach. This extensive, ongoing musical and cross-cultural experience has helped him to understand what elements allow one to move from one rhythmic world to another, from one thought to another, from one feeling to another, and as such to discover the common roots of all these rhythmic tributaries.