Bio
Presentation/short biography Tom & Aurélie
This Belgian acoustic duo started out in 2004 and has since received numerous prices and award. Their debut album “Festina Lente” was album of the year by national radio Klara and fROOTS called it “our favourite new album”. After playing the major festivals and touring in France, Netherlands, Germany, Norway, Switserland, Senegal, … the Belgian minister of culture even gave them in 2021 the Flemish Folk Award for Best Live Band. In the vibrating Belgian folk scene they are considered the most interesting musical act since they fully exploit that strange “Belgitude” which is sometimes defined as creating an identity out of a non-identity.
On stage they use unexpected instruments like a trumpetviolin, a viola d’amore, a musical saw, a sitar and a one of a kind baszouki which was invented and constructed especially for them. To this they add their polymorphic voices, then rasping, then cristal and silky, sublime. Sometimes it sounds like Goethe married to Tom Waits, sometimes like a Mali blues on a nail box violin, sometimes like french fantasy chanson and sometimes like a baroque viola d’amore in constellation with a fat grooving classical guitar. They radiate a rare madness while maintaining sharp focus on various nomadic melodies. You cannot put a format on them, their music is free and graceful, timeless yet mortal.
Folkworld called them "one of the most inventive European folk related groups” and their latest album “The Seven Gardens” reached #4 in the European World Music Charts.
To keep the touring as sustainable as possible, this couple uses the solar power from their off-grid cabin in the Ardens to charge their long range EV packed with instruments. If need be, they can even power their PA with the car. True off-grid folk !
Extended biography Tom & Aurélie
Tom Theuns & Aurélie Dorzée are longtime front runners within the Belgian acoustic field . With a solid classical education, Aurélie was back in the 1990’s the violin player of key Walloon folk bands like Pantha Rei and Trio Trad. Meanwhile, on the northern half of the country, Tom was the founder and guitar/banjo player of legendary bands like Ambrozijn and Think of One. When they started combining their forces in 2004, they fully exploited that strange “Belgitude” which is sometimes defined as creating an identity out of a non-identity. As Folkworld noted :"one of the most inventive European folk related groups”
They started off under the bandname “Aurelia” together with percussionist Stephan Poughin. After their first gig they signed a record deal with Homerecords, the beginning of a deep and strong collaboration. Their first album “Festina Lente” became album of the year by national radiostation KLARA and was hailed throughout by national press :
“It should be like this, you put on a record and there are no words to describe what springs in your mind”*****(De Standaard) **** (Vers L’Avenir). „C'est beau et inclassable, liquide et relevé” *** (Le Soir)
Following this instant succes, they started playing numerous big festivals like Sfinx, Dranouter, Festival van Vlaanderen, Rudolstadt, Lindeboom, … and they toured in France, Norway, Sénégal, Portugal, Switserland, …
In 2007 as they were looking for a place to live and rehearse in Ghent, they acquired a 40m ship which they baptised “Aurelia Feria”. They built a small concert venue of 85 seats in it and started navigating. Thanks to the agency Music Idea they played 120 adventurous concerts on the waterways of Belgium and all the way to Paris. Incredible journeys that took several months.
This maritime adventure was the inspiration of their second album “Hypnogol” with Michel Massot on tuba and Sara Salverius on accordeon.
**** Het Parool (Nl), *** De Volkskrant (NL), „ Aurélie Dorzée, Tom Theuns en Stéphan Pougin brouwen als alchemistisch geschoolde druïdes een amalgaam vol magie, mysterie en gekte” (Folkforum). „Beau comme une femme qui sait entretenir le mystère” ***(La libre Belgique)
Meanwhile they also reached the final of “La Biennale de la Chanson Française” and they composed the music of some succesfull theatre productions like “Tête à Claques”.
Still under the name Aurelia and with Stephan, a third album “The Hour of the Wolf” was inspired by the dark movies of cineast Ingmar Bergman. “Het is de symbiose tussen de stemmen en de instrumenten, en de zoektocht naar onuitgegeven klank en structuur, die de luisteraar meesleept…” (De Standaard)
In 2010 and after a trip in Senegal and Mali, they recorded “La Creation du Monde” with Senegalese percussionist Serigne CM Gueye. The artwork was by New-York based Callie Hirsh.
„Un voyage calme, lent et puissant entre la sérénité et l’extase” *** (Le Soir)
„The result is a stunning disc with violin, guitar and calabash as bearing instruments and a singing of all three that will leave no one indifferent” **** (Norran, zweden)
In 2018 they proposed their children’s production Pipa Polo on a JM showcase in Paris which resulted in an unexpected two year tour of 250 gigs in theaters throughout France. After that Norway also got interested and after a crash course of mime in Paris, a new show for children was put together with no spoken language : La Linea, about today’s border and immigration issues. This is still touring at the moment.
As they wanted to explore their sound palette more freely , Tom & Aurélie decided to continue as a duo and their fifth album “L’ART DE VOLER” (Homerecords) was recorded almost entirely live and analogue. Nominated for the french l’Octave de la Musique.
„Meesterlijk en groots in zijn finesse” (Folk)
In between there were numerous collaborations with Het Paleis, Gabriel Yacoub, Areski Belkacem, Maskesmachien, Max vandervorst, Laure Delcamp.
With Michel Massot on tuba and trombone they recorded a highly medieval, alchemistic “ELIXIR” their sixth album augmenting their collection of instruments with a nailbox violin and a psalterion. “A masterpiece” (New Folk Sounds) , “Elixir est la quintessence de la vie” (L’Avenir). To accompany the album they made a short surrealistic movie (23’) with eRno Le Mentholé as Director, editor & operator.
In 2021 the minister of culture gave them the Flemish Folk Award for « Best Live Band ».
Their seventh and latest release “The Seven Gardens” (2022) became a conceptual opus: seven musical gardens released in seven singles with each three songs, using seven languages & lyrics inspired by seven poets.
Today they continue to ”travel to the outer regions of folk music, in search for virusses which they inject in their blood to see what kind of symptoms comes out of it”. As they put it themselves.