Essaï Altounian

Essaï Altounian
Essaï Altounian with Genealogy in 2015
Background information
Also known as	Essaï
Born	(1980-11-05) 5 November 1980 Paris, France
Genres	Pop
Occupation(s)	Singer, songwriter, keyboardist, music producer, actor
Instruments	Vocals, keyboard
Labels	Sony France, Mercury Universal
Associated acts	Genealogy
Website	http://www.essai-online.com/

Essaï Altounian (Armenian: Եսայի Ալթունյան, in Western Armenian Եսայի Ալթունեան) born 5 November 1980), sometimes credited as simply Essaï, is a French-Armenian singer, songwriter, keyboardist, music producer and an actor.

Biography

Essaï Altounian is a French-Armenian singer, songwriter, keyboardist, music producer and an actor. Being of Armenian origin Essai lived and debuted in France. His grandparents escaped from Kharpet during the Armenian Genocide. At the age of 5 his grandfather Nechane escaped from Der zor desert after his mother and sisters were killed in front of him. He walked alone in the desert when some Bedouins found him crying and decided to keep him. At the age of 18 he met a cousin in a market by chance and moved to France to live with his other cousins that survived. In France he met Essai’s grandmother, learned French and worked hard for his family. Essaï grew up listening to the stories about the Armenian Genocide and his grandfather even wrote a book to never forget what happened to him and to the Armenian people in 1915. The book is called “The Child of the Desert”.

Career

At the age of 12 Essaï composed his first song, and at the age of 19 signed a contract with Sony France as lead singer of the urban and pop idol group “Ideal-3”. The pop/urban inspired top ten hit “Pardonne-moi” and was played on all major French radio stations, including NRJ and Fun Radio. The band toured all of the major venues and arenas of the time. They also appeared on numerous television shows including Jacques Martin. Essaï left his law studies at the Jean Monnet University Paris, to pursue his passion for music.

When Essai was 21 he left the band and signed a solo contract with Mercury Universal. As a solo artist he began to receive many invitations from different TV shows including invitations to write and produce for other artists. Essaï was approached to contribute his inspiration and artistic sensitivity to artists like Jenifer. He composed songs for her album, which eventually received the prestigious Diamond Plaque award.

Landing in the role of Count Paris in Gérard Presgurvic’s musical comedy “Romeo and Juliet” Essaï performed in front of thousands of spectators across France, Belgium and Switzerland. The show’s album sold 2 million copies. Soon, France’s First Lady Bernadette Chirac asked him to write and produce “Un peu de moi” and within a short period of time the single went gold.

Essaï collaborated with Michel Legrand. They co-produced 25 songs together for “Les Demoiselles de Rochefort” and had a successful run at Palais des Congrès in Paris.Then he wrote “ S'aimer est interdit ” for the famous musical comedy “Le Roi Soleil” for Warner Music France. That album went double Platinum with over 3 million tickets sold during the three years of its run. In 2008, he composed the soundtrack for the film “Incontrôlable” starring Michael Youn. Writing and arranging musical pieces for many shows Essaï also directed entire musical productions such as mythical Parisian Cabarets, “Bobino" . Since 2010, Essaï has been the musical director for "La Bataille des chorales, Le grand show des enfants, Pop’s Cool, L’Ecole des fans " - all of them were on air on the TF1 channel (France). Taking a big step across the Atlantic to the United States Essaï reached out to Kerry Gordy from Motown music. It was Kerry’s 14-year-old daughter who made her father pay attention, by giving him a score of 11 on a scale of 1-10. Essaï is really concerned by the story of his grandparents and in 2015 for the centennial of the Armenian genocide, he wrote, composed and produced a song called "Je n'oublie pas / Chem Morana ", dedicated to the 1,5 million Armenian victims of the 1915 genocide.

Eurovision

Altounian is a member of the supergroup Genealogy, who represented Armenia in the 60th Eurovision Song Contest hold in Vienna.^[1] He became an Armenian citizen along with the other foreign members of Genealogy on 28 April 2015 after being given Armenian passports by President Serzh Sargsyan.^[2]

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Essaï Altounian.

• Official website