The voice: that is where everything begins, stems from, for Noga.It is the organ, the invisible chord, that connects all her lives, whether she is giving

concerts, running workshops, adding her support to the teaching teams in Catalyse, the organisation she founded in Geneva, taking part in contemporary art

performances or singing with a symphonic orchestra.

E ven in the profession she practised until the age of 30,before following her artistic calling, voice has

always had pride of place: for what else is being a lawyer if not lending one’s voice to those who cannot have their own heard? This voice has been steeped in composite sounds since childhood: the Hebrew of her parents from Israel and Germany, the French learned at school (in a country, Switzerland, where four languages are spoken!), English...These different tones have enriched Noga’s repertoire, nourished over the years by piano and classical singing lessons, jazz training, drama classes in Boston andLondon, circle song workshops (with Bobby McFerrin)and improvisation (with Rhiannon’s All the Way In), herencounters, her travels ... Noga pulsates with multiple butnever dissonant voices. These voices flourish as much insolo as when in chorus, drawing, with subtle notes, oftencontrasted, but always appropriate, the portrait of a richand plural personality, united by a foundation of valuesthat maintain her upright and centred, as in the yoga she often refersto. Freedom of being and choice, the sound-link “barometer”, sharing, transmission, memory, the value of experience, the celebration of life, the sacred, friendship and love, of course, “the vase that holds everything”, are so many beacons that guide Noga in everything she undertakes.

MULTIPLE VOICESnoga

NEXT, a ressurgenceNEXT, the title of Noga’s new album, released March 9,2018 in Switzerland and October 26 in France (MusiqueSauvage / Pias) sounds like an invitation to move on to thenext page of the book of her life. NEXT like a renewal: forthis eighth opus, Noga, who says she “loves to collaborate”,has recomposed her creative collective. Always relying onthe faithful, such as the multi-instrumentalist Patrick Bebey, her “alter ego”, met in 2010 and who has worked with CharlElie Couture, Mory Kanté, Miriam Makeba and Arcade Fire, the Swiss singer has also surrounded herself with new signatures. On the text side, she has opened her songbook up to novelists Patrice Guirao and Marie Nimier, an unprecedented approach for her. And besides the words of Allain Leprest, the singer and poet who died in 2011, she has lent her voice to the words of Serge Lama and Alexis HK. On the music side, she has become closer to the cellist Olivier Koundouno (seen alongside Emily Loizeau and Dick Annegarn) who was the artistic director of NEXT. His musical influences have brought a new “colour” of sound, different from previous albums. This change is notably apparent in ”Chant de paix” (Peace song), co-composed with Noga after the release of NEXT. The music and arrangements of this song came very naturally, on the words of friend andwriting collaborator Bettina Vernet. The song resonates

with countless conversations, exchanges between the two: yesterday and today, the past in connection with the present, light and darkness, the possibility of options, hope in spite of everything ... so many pebbles that the singer sows, tirelessly tracing the common thread of a road to be invented together, among humans of all persuasions, daring the folly of believing. The video of this song was produced with the support of the RTS (Radio Television Suisse), in order to participate in the EBU (European Broadcasting Union) project The New European Songbook, which celebrates the centenary of the First World War.

Daring the alchemy of the symphony orchestraNoga needs to always evolve and take up challenges. The latest is the Symphonie Française by conductor and soprano saxophonist Bernd Ruf. With the Baden-Baden Philharmo-nic Orchestra, and Patrick Bebey (piano, percussion, pygmy flute and vocals), this is a daring cross-over symphony, which mixes symphonic music, film music and song, from Ravel to Debussy via Georges Delerue, Philippe Sarde ... and Noga! Here again we find her quest for harmony and complemen-tarity, celebrating contrasting facets of the same gift: life. (First performance on January 30, 2019 in Lahr - Germany).

Breath, at the source of creation Noga also leaves beaten paths to go explore new artistic forms. With her percussionist friend Thierry Hochstätter, in 2013 she created the ASAP2 duo: together they create musical sculptures on which they will then interpret original pieces, as part of performances. The duo is represented by the Gowen Contemporary Geneva gallery. Pushing a little deeper into this incursion into contemporary art, Noga has performed several times with artist Nick Laessing and his Eidophone, notably during “Drawing Now”, the contemporary drawing fair held

www.nogaspace.com www.instagram.com / nogaofficiel www.facebook.com / nogaofficiel www.youtube.com / nogafaitdesvideos www.soundcloud.com / noganext

every year in Paris. “The Eidophone allows you to draw and paint with your breath,” says Noga. “It’s a creation inspired by an invention, more than 150 years ago, of a singing teacher who wanted to show how sound exists through breath”. And so by voice. Once again.

#chanterpoursouvrirSe laisser aller à chanter pour dépasser la peur du jugement, pour oser se tromper et découvrir ses potentiels, pour évoluer en habitant sa vraie place.

#chanteretsesentirvivantL'improvisation et le chant permettent d'accueillir sa vulnérabilité. S'autoriser à être fragile et s'émanciper.

#chanteretassumerseschoix Etre pleinement présent et engagé « Je dis oui et je choisis de». Rester ouvert en demeurant centré, concentré pour choisir et assumer ses choix : un équilibre précieux dans un environnement moderne débordant de stimulations.

#chanteretperseverer. Lâcher la perfection invite à accepter ce que la vie offre. C’est un outil qui soigne et accompagne le chemin vers un objectif sans se laisser obnubiler par le seul résultat. C’est une source de satisfactions quotidiennes qui soutient les efforts sur le long terme.

#chanteretêtreréactif Etre capable d’improviser en chant peut être utile en toutes sortes de circonstances. C’est une capacité précieuse dans un monde en perpétuel mouvement, où les changements s’accélèrent et où ce qui est vrai un jour risque de ne plus l’être le lendemain. Cela permet aussi de relativiser la notion de vérité.

#chanteretpréserversonunitéChanter et improviser peut permettre de jouer avec toutes les parties du puzzle qui constituent un individu. Entre vulnérabilité et puissance, entre culture et instinct, entre ouverture et choix…cela contribue à un nouvel équilibre de l’être.

#chanterensemblePlaisir d’émettre des sons et de bouger en commun. C’est bien ensemble que l’on crée une polyphonie instinctive.Le flux vocal et l’énergie du groupe nourrissent chaque individu, reliés dans une expérience positive de solidarité, d’autant plus nécessaire qu’elle devient de plus en plus rare dans notre univers digitalisé.

From « me» to « us »

Noga is invited to the first Festival of Education /Printemps de l’Education (31.03.19 in Geneva). The title of her lecture speaks for itself: “The living arts, the voice and improvisation at the service of the teacher”. It is so important for her to make accessible different practices aiming at “empowerment”(self-esteem and esteem of others, empowerment, emancipation, power to choose and act), by considering individuals, beings in their entirety (the physical, the intellect, the spiritual, the emotional, the relational). Noga values the process that leads to this result as well as its collective dimension. “It’s not ‘them’ and ‘me but how I can find the ‘I’ whilst being in the ‘we’.”

THE VOICEIS OPENPLAY YOUR VOICETO OPEN UP TO VALUETO ITS VALUEENHANCE THE INSTANTTHE NOTECREATIONBEING

I N E Q U I L I B R I U MCREATOR EXPLORER TRANSMITTER

THE ALBUM NEXT : “THE URGENCY TO LOVE AND FOLLOW YOUR RHYTHM”

” Léger la vie ”, the trigger

NEXT was almost called ”Léger La Vie” (Feather light, life). A few simple words that sounded like a reflection of the atmosphere in which this record was conceived. Above all, it was when she received a text by Patrice Guirao that Noga felt the urge to launch out again. “I had just finished the album ”Laisser partir” (Let it go), which was linked to the illness and the death of my husband and I was not ready yet ... And this text by Patrice was a trigger. There was also Bettina, who helped me to take off again, to ripen new songs.” Bettina, her writing double, with whom she wrote ”Dépêche-toi” (Hurry up), a title inspired by a phrase utte-red at a funeral: “Hurry to love before it’s too late …”. This is a text that expresses “the polarity we live in,” says Noga. On a very rhythmic tempo, she keeps on catching us off guard, wrong-footing us, telling us to hurry to take our time. And if you feel an urgency in listening to it, it is that of loving and following your own rhythm while ignoring exter-nal injunctions. The urgency to assert one’s freedom of being, an essential position for Noga, found like filigree woven into the superb song ”N’écoute que ceux qui ne te disent rien” (Only listen to those who don’t tell you any-thing) by Patrice Guirao.

Love in all its nuances

The novelist and lyricist was able to accurately translate Noga’s states of mind and questions. This is still the case on the third and last piece he wrote for her ”Vis mon amour vis” (Live, my love, live). “The love of the other is only the love of oneself,” he has her say. “It’s love in acceptance. I’m not saying that in practice I get there but to love the other is to want their good and let them go if they don’t love us any-more. The freedom to love is a theme that speaks to me,” ob-serves Noga. And a theme that she sings in all its nuances: at once playful and acerbic with ”Dis-moi” (Tell me), which describes, from the pen of Bettina, the emotions and the game of hide-and-seek between two lovers, one more ardent with this desire for the other, which makes us feel “This taste of water mixed with fire” in ”J’en Veux ” (I want It), a Serge Lama song. From love to friendship, we barely change our bearing. With ”Mes Amies” (My friends), Noga narrates “a story of girls, a tale of women, that hangs by a thread, the precious link of the soul”. One way for her to thank the women who accompanied her at the time of the death of her husband, who “were present but in lightness,” she specifies.

Turning the page

That mourning, that grief is evoked by Noga with sensitive touches in 3 Syllables. This text, written with Bertrand Schautz, was inspired by Noga’s trip to Cuba in December 2016, a year after the death of her husband and a mon-th after the death of Fidel Castro. It is a song “to turn the page”, in which she paints “two portraits: a young woman lost in her mourning, a nation lost in its awakening”. But it is also a tribute to the guide who accompanied us, who had given up teaching because she didn’t have enough money to study, points out Noga in an aside. And through this, it is a questioning of all these ideals that she and her family, like many people from there and elsewhere, have sincerely be-

lieved in. These “3 syllables” are those that form the name “Trinidad”, the title of the preceding track: without words, this prelude, composed by the trio Noga / Patrick Bebey / Olivier Koundono, draws, in the words of the singer, “the musical landscape” of this Cuban city.

Knowing where we come from

As she was about to finish recording NEXT, Noga received the text from Marie Nimier and Thierry Illouz,

”Des envies d’encens” (Longing for Incense). Very quickly she composed the melody, which came naturally to her, doubtless because the words of the lyricists found an echo in her. “I love its content, which talks about memo-ry. That’s very important to me. I don’t think we can move forward without knowing where we come from. You can’t just cut yourself off from your roots, I don’t believe you can.” She pays tribute to her roots through the ”Psaumes de Minuit” (Midnight Psalms), which close the album. Sung in Hebrew, they bring together verses from two different psalms, one of which is the letters of her first name, Noga, meaning Morning Star. “Without having any religious aim, I like to connect a piece with my origins. This is the last song we recorded, at night, outside, together, almost in improvi-sation. It was a very beautiful moment.” Listening, is it the sacred dimension of the words that touches us without our understanding or the voice of Noga which, in Hebrew, is suffused with a particular emotion? One thing is certain: the singer allows us to leave with a gentle sensation of soothing serenity.

CATALYSE VOICE O F T R A N S M I S S I O N

“I’m passionate about the power of the voice” says Noga. She felt the need to open to others this field of possibilities, the reaches of which she never ceases to

explore and discover. It is from this need to pass on that Catalyse arose – the organisation she founded in

Geneva in 2003 is based on a three-word proposal: ”Towards happy creativity”.

Through artistic education (singing, acting, improvisa-tion), the performing arts (artist accompaniment, resi-

dencies, help with creation and distribution) and cultural mediation (workshops for college students, backstage tours, meetings with artists ...), Catalyse aims at “restoring social bonds and helping people florish through creative activities and live performances”. And this by welcoming all, professionals and amateurs, regardless of age (from three to 120 year-olds!), origin or social class. In the school the singer has developed her own teaching method, Sonoga, constructed from all that has shaped her according to her encounters and her training: theatre and singing (”That’s the technique,” she specifies), but also im-provisation, circle-singing, yoga and body-mind, which she initiated at the Hendricks Institute in the United States. All this constitutes “the material, the emotional and corporeal intelligence” that she privileges in her approach. Delive-red by other teachers in the school, the Sonoga teaching method respects the rhythm of each individual, without judgment – a fundamental principle, for Noga. She sum-marizes her philosophy as follows: “My specificity is to lay the table and invite people to help themselves to the dishes that are there.” The Sonoga method emphasizes the breathing-body-voice links and provides great tools, not only to improve vocal performances (speaking and / or singing) in an enjoyable way, but also to believe in oneself, to occupy one’s place, reinstate one’s power without taking power over others, to acquire good reflexes, be present to the world of today and actor of change.Apart from Catalyse, Noga also regularly organizes her IMPROVIZ workshops, intended for singers /musicians, firms and groups. They allow people “to let go of the judge who is in us and to promote encounters, leaving the music to direct us rather than the reverse,” she explains. Keen to open up to as many people as possible, Noga has also de-veloped a specific approach aimed especially at people in situations of precariousness or disability. Thus, even before art therapy was an established discipline, she said she was practising “art healing”: Noga, singer-healer of the wounds of the soul and body, revealing the voices of outcasts.

The voice and its benefits

In Catalyse, of which she is president and co-director, Noga is mainly devoted to school and improvisation workshops, a practice that has been for her a liberation “I’ve a nature both ultra-sensitive and anxious, and without improvisation, whether theatrical or sung, I‘d have retained a very controlled side. It [improvisation] has allowed me to be more flexible.” Noga refers to the “connection”– a notion so central to her – that is formed between people who often don’t know one another: “very quickly, from playing and improvisation, they’ll journey together, meet”. One of her favourite tools is circle-singing, vocal improvisation in a circle. “It sounds like a form of meditation because at the same time you repeat musical patterns that you can’t let go of, while remaining relaxed. It’s also how one is present at the same time in this circle, with the others, and inside one-self”. Noga likes this image of the circle, where everyone finds their place, as opposed to that of the triangle, which evokes either a hierarchical pyramid or a torture victim-sa-viour relationship. The benefits of this playful research around the voice are multiple, starting with the pleasure of singing and moving in communion, creating an “instinctive polyphony”. It is also a way of bringing out the unsuspected resources that one has in oneself: “I want people to emerge from a single position, a single melody, and discover new ones, to surprise themselves, and like me to play on several notes of their interior keyboard. That’s what improvisation is: am I surprising myself? So suddenly we develop a wonder, another way of looking at life,” enthuses Noga.

Catalyse is an association recognized for public utility.Its school is certified by the Artistiqua norm (Department of Public Instruction, Culture and Sport of the Canton of Geneva). www.catalyse.ch

PRESS CLIPINGS

“Noga’s music is not something you listen to, it is something you live. It seeps into you and fills you. And when you realize it, it is already too late, it has caught you in its net (...) Beyond the well asserted style there is escape, the escape it offers in the course of each of its pieces. And it is so liberating ... An artist to listen to, to listen to again and again without restraint (...) ” Michel Martinelli – Jazz Rhônes Alpes

“Songs that speak of the passing of time, the strength of love and friendship, absence (...) on mixed melodies of jazz, pop and world music (…) Dense and invigorating, permeated by a sense of urgency, but which, paradoxically, invites you to take a break, to recharge your batteries the better to take off again.” Annie Grandjanin – Annie All Music

“A very nice parenthesis, fresh and sensitive, a multicou-loured patchwork with dazzling pennons fluttering on the thin skin of our fragile emotions. Spiritual, soothing and exciting. In a word, alive.” Patrick Engel – Hexagon

“Charm and elegance at the service of song (...) The au-dience was conquered, almost bewitched by this solar woman, radiant, with a pure, divine voice (...) It’s with hearts fired up that the audience came out into the dark night (…)” Le Dauphiné

“A quiet but determined trajectory, in counterpoint to major actions (...)Noga explores in a light voice themes that are sometimes not so light, from serious to almost muti-nous, marrying the canons of ballads with jazzy rhythms and world music colours. She is assisted by two remarkable musicians in these often sophisticated compositions, refusing facile melisma (...)They provide the atmosphere of intimacy that evokes wild hours and murmured rebellions, a register in which Noga excels.” Le Matin Dimanche

“To speak so well of the wounds of the soul, it is necessary to have experienced them: rejection, betrayal, abandon-ment, humiliation, injustice. And to have been able to bring light to the dark, to transform pain, sorrow, into song that operates like a balm and is transmitted as a gift. Noga is an alchemist.” Isabelle Cerboneschi – All-India.com

“For Noga, singing is a proposition of life, a philosophy in action ... It is impossible to resist the eminently human attraction of this form of expression, which makes each concert a source of openness and experimentation from which one emerges happy and having grown.”Annie-Claire – Francofans

QUOTES

“Noga’s voice ... It captivates and stretches into a long scarf of sounds... takes its time and gives us back our own. It is a voice to be consumed with an old Bourbon on ice, curled up on a couch by the fire ... Noga, I text you bravo, keep it up, amaze them all as you have amazed me! Give them the urge to fly, to glide, head in the clouds. Katherine, the girl stuck to the ceiling” Katherine Pancol – journalist and bestselling French novelist

PRESS CLIPINGS

“Noga’s music is not something you listen to, it is something you live. It seeps into you and fills you. And when you realize it, it is already too late, it has caught you in its net (...) Beyond the well asserted style there is escape, the escape it offers in the course of each of its pieces. And it is so liberating ... An artist to listen to, to listen to again and again without restraint (...) ” Michel Martinelli – Jazz Rhônes Alpes

Performing in concert and trusting the voice, the music, to allow members of the audience to open up to the moment, to connect and access their own essence.

Moving borders between French, Hebrew, song, jazz, world music, sacred music, secular music ... With her accomplices Patrick Be-bey and Olivier Koundouno, Noga creates magic on mixed sounds (piano, cello,

keyboard, senza, pygmy flute, ca-labash) and opens up to those who let go a beneficial space between

consciousness and escape.

« It’s a magical world ! »- Kirk Lightsey

NEXT on tour

New dates coming soon......

15-16 oct 2019 — Paris - Théâtre de l’Atalante - FR18-19 juin 2019 — Paris - Théâtre de l’Atalante - FR14-15 mai 2019 — Paris - Théâtre de l’Atalante - FR13 avril 2019 — Thoune - Bourse Suisse aux spectacles -CH9-10 avril 2019 — Paris - Théâtre de l’Atalante - FR8 février 2019 — Argonay - Espace culturel La Ferme d’Argonay- FR30 janvier 2019 — Lahr - Stadthalle - Avec l’orchestrephilharmonique de Baden Baden - DE1er déc 2018 — Montélimar - Théâtre Le Calepin - FR28 nov 2018 — Paris - Théâtre de l’Atalante - FR27 nov 2018 — Paris -Théâtre de l’Atalante - FR16 nov 2018 — Cébazat - Festival Sémaphore en chanson -FR1er juillet 2018 — Seoul - One Month Festival- Live streamingvia FB28 juin 2018 — Genève, Carouge - Théâtre Alchimic - CH 27juin 2018 — Genève, Carouge - Théâtre Alchimic - CH 24 mars2018 — Genève - Festival Voix de Fête - CH13 mars 2018 — Paris - La Boule Noire - FR11 mars 2018 — Montélimar - Théâtre Le Calepin - FR3 février 2018 — Lyon - A Thou Bout d’Chant - FR27 novembre 2017 — Paris - Studio Raspail - FR

Exposition & perfo.

24 to 26 mars 2015 — Drawing Now Paris - performing with Voice Figure / Eidophone - Nick Laesing 25 mars 2015 — Le Silencio - Paris - performing with Voice Figure / Eidophone - Nick Laesing 2014 - Gowen Contemporary, Geneva, Switzerland - Aleph - Group exhibition with ASAP2

Discography

- Chant de paix - Noga © 2018 Musique Sauvage / PIAS- NEXT - Noga © 2018 CH goElan / Willy Lugeon -FR MusiqueSauvage / Pias- Laisser partir – Noga / Patrick Bebey © 2016 CH distrib. WillyLugeon - FR distrib. InOuïe distribution- ASAP2 – Noga / Thierry Hochstätter - Environnement sonore© 2014 CH distrib. Willy Lugeon- Ça tourne – Noga / Patrick Bebey © 2014 CH distrib. WillyLugeon. FR distrib. Volvox Music / Rue Stendhal- Miel & Poivre / Poivre & Miel - Noga © 2010 CHdistrib.Harmonia Mundi- Rien de neuf, sauf les Bulles - Noga © 2006 CH distrib. WillyLugeon.- N Project / 1-Berechit Noga, Ed Lyve, Quartier Lointain,David Granite and friends © 2006 CH distrib. Willy Lugeon.- Kurt Weill Jazz-Songs Noga & Quartet Kirk Lightsey, SangomaEverett,Ricardo del Fra, Simon Belelty. © 2000 Sony Classical- Au nom de tes rêves - Noga © 1995 Morning StormFeaturing & single :

- Eli, can you hear me – Feat Noga – Sloe Joe & the GingerAccident ©2015 https: / / www.youtube.com / watch?v=56uoSXr596s

Video clip & documentary

- Chant de paix © 2018- Dépêche-toi © 2018- Innocents © 2015- Stabat Mater © 2014- Heidi Raymond : Vivre sa voix © 1998 – Direction artistique etproduction : Noga. Avec Elsa Maurus, Waltraud Meier, HannaSchaer

MEDIA FR : Lollypop Communication – T +33 1 48 44 23 67 Véronique Broyer – verob@lollypopcommunication.com Marino Lebleis – marino@lollypopcommunication.comMEDIA CH : Rosalba Drosirosalba.drosi@me.com – T +41 79 431 29 80

LABEL : Musique Sauvage – Olivier Boccon-Gibod obg@horizonlive.frCONCERTS : Horizon – Sébastien Gourrat sebastien.gourrat@horizonlive.fr

MANAGEMENT : Bettina Vernetbettina.vernet@goelan.ch – T +41 79 200 84 28

Written by : Emmanuelle Chaudieu French-English translation : Chloé BäkerPhoto : © Yann Zitouni © Bongartz Photo album : © Loll Willems

Q U E L Q U E S É T A P E S S U R U N C H E M I N D E V O I X