Trained at the Conservatoire de Neuchâtel (Switzerland) and the Royal College of Music in London, Antoine Françoise is a Franco-Swiss pianist and composer. Fascinated by the music of our time and working with living composers, he worked for a long time in London with the London Contemporary Orchestra, where he collaborated with Radiohead guitarist Jonny Greenwood on stage and film music. In Switzerland, where he currently lives, he is pianist with the Nouvel Ensemble Contemporain NEC and the Ensemble Contrechamps in Geneva, as well as with the piano duo Antoine, Françoise, Gilles and Grimaitre. He has also been artistic director and programmer of the NEC since 2016 until 2023, as well as artistic collaborator at the Les Amplitudes festival.
On the international scene, he performs with Nikel, a percussion, saxophone, electric guitar and piano quartet and winner of the 2023 Swiss Music Prize. As a pianist, Antoine has worked closely with composers such as Rebecca Saunders, Steve Reich, Sarah Nemtsov, Eric Gaudibert, Enno Poppe, Alexander Schubert, Hanspeter Kyburz, Chaya Czernowin, George Benjamin and many others. His repertoire includes several hundred premieres.
Antoine has taught at the Royal College of Music in London, the HEM in Geneva and the HEMU in Lausanne, and now holds a position as professor of piano and chamber music at the Bern University of the Arts (HKB).
His compositions have been performed in France, England, Switzerland, the United States, Brazil and Korea. He generally writes for solo or small chamber music ensembles, and regularly collaborates with the children's theatre company Globes-Trottoirs as arranger, musical coach or composer on three of their shows. In 2019, he will be writing the music for Diverti Menti, the latest show by choreographer Maud Blandel, in which he also plays the piano. This encounter has given rise to several projects combining choreography and live music, including My Epifunny, the latest show by choreographer Marco Berrettini. He is also composer and performer on the show SO/MA, by Floriane Comméléran (L'oeil qui écoute company) and works regularly with actor and director Joël Maillard.
