Clotilde Rullaud Nacoulma

Clotilde is an international multidisciplinary creator, artistic director, vocalist, flutist, producer and facilitator who employs a range of artforms to generate new poetic languages. She combines music, song, dance, and the visual arts to make singular performance pieces, concerts, and films.

Her music and motion art movie XXY [ɛks/ɛks/wʌɪ] (2018) has been screened in over thirty festivals around the world and received several prizes and nominations. Her most recent album, A Woman’s Journey (2016) received sixteen awards, six of which were for the best album (in France and the USA). Clotilde’s second album, In Extremis (2008), was ranked among the top five albums of 2011 by The Sunday Times (UK) and 2013 by the NPR Annual Jazz Critics Poll (USA). Her international career has led her to perform at venues and festivals in Australia, Burkina-Faso, China, Germany, Korea, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Switzerland, Taiwan, UK and the United States.

“She seems not to beam her ‘vocalastics’ through the electronics of a modern microphone, but rather through a gigantic prism that in turn rotates on an imaginary axis, controlled it would appear, by the power of her will.” Raul da Gama – Latin Jazz Network (CA)

“Her tastes are strikingly eclectic. And she has the technique and imagination to hold all the myriad influences together. Her rich, deep timbre is a thing of beauty.” (**** & #5 Best Jazz albums 2011)
Clive Davis – The Sunday Times (UK)

“Clotilde combines the laid-back hipness of a Helen Merrill or a Sheila Jordan with the kind of emotional interpretation of lyrics that one normally associates with rock or folk singers—yet her phrasing is pure jazz.” Lynn Bayley – Fanfare Mag (USA)

“Her true purpose: challenging both song and voice in order to reach their full expression.” Obari Toshio – JazzCritics (JP)

“Ce qu’on retient d’abord c’est sa voix riche de timbres sans effets gratuits (…). Une voix passant l’air de rien du frôlement de la mélodie à une affirmation, une décision prégnantes.” Jacques Chesnel – Citizenjazz (FR)

“Her nimble mezzo voice is seemingly raising from some faraway place, like the essence of the soul’s breath, a pure necessity to sing.” Laurent Valéro - France Musique Radio (FR)

“She has a gripping voice, with a certain wonderful gravity, putting us in mind of Nina Simone.” Jean-Marc Gelin, Jazzman (FR)