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ABOUT US

Sevana Tchakerian

Marius Pibarot

Vahan Kerovpyan

Elâ Nuroğlu

Shushan Kerovpyan

Ezgi Sevgi Can

Each musician in this cross-cultural sextet is a vocalist and multi-instrumentalist. Their message is one of emancipation and fraternity, their music is imbued with folk traditions, old and new. Singing in their mother tongues (Turkish, Armenian, English and French), they tell the story of an inner home, accustomed to exile, cultural blending and renewal.

Created in Paris in 2012, Collectif Medz Bazar has travelled extensively through Europe, and performs regularly in North America and in the Middle-East. Fervent lovers of gatherings and exchange, at ease with all audiences, Medz Bazar’s musicians perform with the same enthusiasm in major cities like New York, Diyarbekir, Montreal,Yerevan and Berlin, as in remote villages reaching from the Cévennes mountains in France to the Munzur valley in Anatolia.

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+33 6 28 23 38 62

contact@collectifmedzbazar.com

Ezgi Sevgi Can

(clarinet, saxophone, vocals)

Initially trained in singing and in classical and flamenco guitar, Ezgi started playing clarinet during her studies in Sociology in Ankara, her hometown. She then took on clarinet lessons in the Music Department of METU University in Ankara, and took part in many concerts with the university Big Band. After arriving in Paris in 2010 for her Master’s degree in Ethnomusicology, she studied jazz harmony and jazz clarinet at the conservatory. She is a founding member of Collectif Medz Bazar, in which she sings, composes and plays clarinet and alto saxophone. She also plays in The Circle Orchestra, a Greek music ensemble.

Shushan Kerovpyan

(double bass, vocals)

Born in Paris to a family of musicians, Shushan was immersed from an early age into Armenian, Turkish and Middle-Eastern traditional music, and learned Armenian modal chant by oral transmission. Being partly American, she was also influenced by folk and gospel music. She sings and plays double bass in various projects since 2013. Other than Collectif Medz Bazar, of which she is a founding member, Shushan is part of The Circle Orchestra (Greek music) and Akn ensemble (Armenian liturgical chant), and is regularly invited by other projects, to play bass and sing in a variety of languages, from English to Ladino, from Spanish to Kurdish.

Elâ Nuroglu

(percussion, vocals)

Born in France, Elâ spent part of her childhood in Turkey, where she returned to live since autumn of 2018. Her musical journey is fed mainly by this double culture in which she has grown. She was introduced to percussion at the Lutherie urbaine in Bagnolet (Paris), where she took part in rhythm and recycled instrument-making workshops for many years, and played in many of their concerts. She later took on a course in drums at the Bagnolet conservatory. Her musical vocabulary is strongly influenced by Middle-Eastern traditional repertoire, especially through her work with Collectif Medz Bazar, of which she is a founding member, and which is one of her main projects. Elâ also sings and plays percussion (davul, bendir, drums) in The Circle Orchestra, along with Ezgi and Shushan.

Vahan Kerovpyan

(percussion, accordion, vocals)

A multi-instrumentalist musician and illustrator, Vahan explores the territory between music and theatre. From his adolescence he was part of several musical projects in Paris, among which Akn (Armenian liturgical chant) and Kotchnak (Armenian folk music) ensembles, as well as several rock bands. As a percussionist and composer, worked in project of contemporary music, theatre and dance. He has written soundtracks for several plays and dance performances, and for animation films. Working between Paris and Porto, Portugal, he has been a member of Clown Laboratori Porto, co-founded the music and theatre duet Lav Lur and has initiated several other music projects with artists in Porto. He is a founding member of Collectif Medz Bazar, a band in which each member is singer, multi-instrumentalist, author, composer and arranger.

Sevana Tchakerian

(accordion, percussion, vocals)

Sevana is a French-Armenian multi-instrumentalist, composer, educator and manager. Besides musical training in classical piano and singing, she nurtures a strong bond with Armenian music since her childhood. She is a founding member of the Collectif Medz Bazar. With a Master’s degree both in Musicology and in Cultural Management, Sevana extends her musical activity to the realms of education and production. In 2015, she moved to Armenia to launch the Tsap-Tsapik educational and musical program. In parallel, she has founded DaylAyl Production, a management agency which specifically promotes and exports Armenian music onto the international scene. In 2019, she directed the Music Action Women Lab, an international residency co-organised by the University of San Francisco, which brings together female artists committed to advancing the causes of women through music.

Marius Pibarot
(violin, double bass, percussion, vocals)

Marius is a multi-instrumentalist since his childhood, starting on violin in chamber music and jazz. He later studied drums, double bass and mandolin, and developed a variety of styles through his many travels and collaborations with other musicians, ranging from Venezuelan to Old Time and Bluegrass, from Cajun to Rock, from Chanson to Turkish and Armenian folk. With French and English as mother tongues, Marius will pick up any other language and not only sing in it, but also soon enough speak. In the Collectif, he composes simple songs, complex phrases and catchy arrangements. His five string violin playing, sometimes boosted with some effect pedals, is warm and spontaneous. On percussion and bass, he brings and groovy latin touch, while his voice is as elastic as Marius himself.
Active in several other bands, Marius also writes music for films and plays, and is developing his solo project.