Franck Tortiller

Some of the work of vibraphonist Franck Tortiller explores meeting points between jazz and classical music. He is also a composer. Tortiller has performed with various classical ensembles, including the early music group Les Arts Florissants. In 2025, he was heard with the Quatuor Debussy on the album Ravels: Quatuor à cordes; Ma mère l'oye; Les danses de Ravel. Tortiller was born in Saint-Léger-sur-Dheune in eastern France, near Dijon. His father was a local musician, and sometimes, as a youth, he would fill in with a family band on drums at dance hall engagements. Tortiller took up classical percussion, first attending the Conservatoire de Dijon (CRR) and then moving to Paris for studies at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) in percussion and music theory. He continued to play jazz and popular music as a student, and in 1986, he founded the Jazz à Couches festival, which still exists. Tortiller won two first prizes in 1989 at the Concours National de Jazz de la Défense. His debut album was classical; he appeared in 1992 on the Les Arts Florissants album Rameau: Pygmalion; Nélée & Myrthis. Tortiller's first jazz release was Mingus/Cuernavaca, with the duo Padovani/Cormann. Tortiller has worked and often recorded with various jazz groups, including the Vienna Art Orchestra from 1993 to 2000. He was director of the Orchestre National de Jazz from 2005 to 2008, and in 2009, he established the Orchestre des jeunes jazzmen de Bourgogne, an 18-musician big band consisting of young players. Tortiller has several groups of his own, including the Orchestre Franck Tortiller ("Frank Tortiller Orchestra" founded 2001) and the Tortiller Trio. He has appeared as a guest with classical ensembles, including the Pasdeloup Orchestra (with which he performed excerpts from Gershwin's Porgy and Bess at the Philharmonie in Paris in 2016), the Basel Sinfonietta, and the Ulm Symphony Orchestra. Several of his albums have fused jazz and classical music, including Claude Debussy... et le Jazz (2018) and Ravels (2025), on which he performed the adaptation Danses de Ravel. Both those albums featured the Quatuor Debussy. Tortiller has taught at the Chevreuse Valley Conservatory in Orsay and the École de Musique de Massy. ~ James Manheim, Rovi