ABOUT SHEMS
Shems Bendali is a young artist who has a great deal to offer. At the end of his musical studies in 2018, he won the Cully Jazz Prize and decided to go to Berlin to look for inspiration and new collaborations.
In March 2019, he released his debut album Choukheads, recorded with the Shems Bendali Quintet. Since then, the band has toured more than 25 venues in Switzerland, France and England.
Choukheads quickly became "Album Révélation Jazz Magazine" in June 2019 and was widely acclaimed by a dozen music critics. The very same year, the young Quintet won the Grand Prix du Tremplin d’Avignon Jazz Festival– a fully-paid 3-day studio session at the prestigious "Studio de La Buissonne" in the south of France. Shems also won the prize for best original composition for the tune called Anima. Anima.
AUJOURD'HUI
Shems performs on stage with his own bands but is also a demanded sideman on the new jazz scene.
In a constant search for developing and expanding his musical expression, Shems readily welcomes new and challenging collaborations with artists from other genres. He likes to position himself both in the center and at the periphery of Jazz.
Motivated by the spiritual and practical value of art, Shems attempts to disprove the many stereotypes surrounding jazz and improvised music. He aspires to create an emotional and richly textured music in order to tell, in a poetic way, the story of his time : " A musicality honoring tradition without being stifled by it" From Le Temps.
"He's got such an appetite for life, an urge to try it all, have it all that makes the incredible maturity in his playing even more surprising"
ARNAUD ROBERT - LE TEMPS
HIS CAREER AND COLLABORATIONS
Shems was born in 1996 and grew up in the small city of Thonon-Les-Bains (France). He studied first with French trumpet player Jeff Baud then went studying at Lausanne Jazz music faculty (Switzerland). There he studied with Matthieu Michel, Emil Spanyi, Robert Bonisolo, René Mosele and Banz Oester. Within the first year studying there, he quickly made his way through the Jazz and Hip Hop scene and was playing in every major Jazz venues in the country.
With his own band and his many prolific artistic collaborations, Shems has been playing on a regular basis in many countries such as Switzerland, France, Italy, Germany, England, Ukraine, Austria, Spain, Belgium, Turkey and Egypt for the past few years.
He has performed on stage and/or recorded in studios with Bastian Baker, Kadebostany, Charlie Winston, Fianso, Rilès, Danitsa, Lea Lu, Issam Krimi sur les scènes de musiques actuelles. Et sur la scène du Jazz avec François Jeanneau, Dré Palmaerts, Matthieu Michel, Pierre Drevet, Banz Oester, Emil Spanyi, Jean-Lou Treboux, Christophe Moniot, Nils Wogram, Nik Bartch, Emmanuel Bex parmi beaucoup d’autres.