Stand-up Bass

Discovering Jimmy Hendrix, young Raphaël Poly decided to start playing music: he then taught himself bass guitar in Blues Rock bands. He progressively went towards jazz and decided to start studying jazz at the Lyon CNR (region national conservatory) where he discovered stand-up bass. In 1999, he won the gold medal and finished his studies in 2000.

A member of the Tribu Hérisson collective since 1997, he has been playing with improvised and contemporary music legends such as Jean-Pierre Drouet, Louis Sclavis, Michel Godard, Benãt Achiary, Akosh S. and Joelle Léandre…
At the same time, Raphaël Poly has been working on joining improvised music and electronic creation: collecting and recycling sounding materials and using them in spontaneous composition.
He got involved in contemporary theatre with the show «Naissances» (births) by Vincent Bady (Trois-Huit compnay, Lyon) as well as contemporary dance by collaborating with the Pascoli company in Grenoble with their «parcours d’écriture chorégraphique» (choreographic writing paths).
Raphaël co-founded Marcelle Bonaventure & Cie with Lucie Sorin, which aimed for the development of an original expression combining contemporary writing and his music. This project gave birth to «Que tu vives [Matériau Médée]» (long live you) created in 2005 in Lyon.
He performs on the jazz scene (A.Jean Marie, S.Potts, B.Blanchet, E.Prost, G.Wolff, E.Borghi, S.Foucher) as well as on the French song scene with Poncet (Lyon).

All his experiences are interconnected through the search for a reactive expression based on improvisation and exchange.