History of Vóden
In 2015, Marguerite Lersteau and David Sévérac got to know each other musically through sessions where they played their two cousin instruments together: the nyckelharpa and the hurdy-gurdy.
Both coming from the world of traditional dance music, they exchange a repertoire of mazurkas, scottish, waltzes, bourrées, ronds de St Vincent, ...
They also quickly shared a common attraction to the music of the Mediterranean area and the Balkans, drawing on the same influences as the projects of the Chemirani family, the projects of the multi-instrumentalist Éfrén López and the numerous recordings of music from Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria.
Since 2017, Marguerite has been interested in studying Swedish and Norwegian dance music and has been taught by Eléonore Billy on several occasions.
In the spring of 2018, David and Marguerite expressed a desire to bring together their Scandinavian and Balkan influences in a single repertoire. Vóden was born and gave its first concert in the summer of the same year.
In 2021, their aesthetic was expanded with the addition of pieces sung, and played with Bulgarian and Anatolian kavals.
In 2024, they are preparing the release, scheduled for 6 December, of their new creation Périphérie in which they explore their own compositions and modern arrangements of Swedish and Bulgarian pieces.
Marguerite Lersteau
Nyckelharpa, Singing
David Sévérac
Hurdy Gurdy, bulgarian and anatolian Kavals
Marguerite Lersteau was born in the heart of the Vendée bocage and began singing at an early age, learning by mimicry. By the time she was 18, she had taught herself to play the folk guitar.
At the same time, she discovered traditional music through dancing and learning to play the fiddle. Moved by its unifying and popular character, she spent two years learning the traditional Vendée repertoire from Maxime Chevrier - by oral transmission - and frequented dance classes and folk dances in order to link music, rhythm and movement.
In 2012, she tried out a nyckelharpa (a fourteenth-century Swedish bowed fiddle) for the first time. Won over by its sound and its complex construction, she acquired her own instrument in 2014, taming it thanks to her violin-playing technique. It wasn't until 2016 that she took part in her first group workshop led by Éléonore Billy, and then in 2017, during a second workshop with Éléonore in a smaller group, she really developed a passion for the nyckelharpa repertoire - that of Sweden. In 2018, she was awarded a 10-day scholarship by FAMDT and Adami to learn more deeply with Éléonore.
Today, she is committed to perfecting her style and training in dance music repertoires of sweden. To this end, she has been taught by accordionist Martin Coudroy during a 10-day one-to-one course and - at a distance - by Swedish violinist Mia Marine.
Keenly aware of the traditional music of the Balkans, she has taken part in various master classes led by Henri Agnel, Efrén López, Isabelle Courroy, Kelly Thoma and Emmanuel Frin, studying the rhythms, scales, ornamentation and style of the repertoires of Turkey, Greece, Crete and Bulgaria. She was one of the musicians on stage during the concert by Kelly Thoma and her guests at the Eurofonik 2023 festival.
She has practised Turkish singing with Veka Aller and through classes led by Eléonore Fourniau, and has been introduced to Swedish singing with the Kongero vocal ensemble and the swedish singer Anna Wikénius. She has also benefited from the teaching of Emmanuel Pesnot as part of the polyphonic quintet Vilaine of 2020 and 2024.
April 2024 saw the release of her first solo album of Swedish repertoire on vocals and nyckelharpas, Smultronställe, under La Voix des Sirènes label.
She also performs with the quintet Soñj (early Western music and ancient and popular music from the East), and is part of a new project being created around Bulgarian music, the Sugar Bulgar quintet, whose first concerts are scheduled for 2025.
David Sévérac grew up at the foot of the Montagne Noire, in the Tarn region of France, and began her musical journey at the age of 8, studying the piano.
In 2005, he discovered the world of traditional music by taking lessons in Middle Eastern percussion (derbouka, riqq and bendir).
At the same time, he attended Occitan balètis and discovered the hurdy-gurdy. In May 2008, he began to learn with Pascal Jaussaud, fascinated by the 3-in-1 nature of the instrument - melody, drone and rhythm. He went on to study with Pascal Lefeuvre, Gregory Jolivet and Romain Baudouin.
In 2014, he joined the Kreiz Breizh Akademi #5 collective, a course dedicated to the study of modal music and lead by Erik Marchand in Central Brittany. During this training, he benefited from the learning of numerous contributors and was introduced to Egyptian music by visiting the musicians of Egyptian Project (Sayed Eman, Salama Metwally, Ragab Sadek). There he discovered the kawala - the traditional Egyptian oblique flute.
The KBA#5 collective will then take to the stage with their show 5ed Round during two years.
Attracted by the sound of oblique flutes and wind instruments specific to the Balkans, he has been training regularly since 2018 to play the flûte kaval. Essentially with Isabelle Courroy and through the Bulgarian and Anatolian repertoires.
In 2022, he received a companionship grant from FAMDT and Adami to study for ten days with Isabelle in private lessons. In 2023, he will also travel to Bulgaria for private kaval lessons with Kiril Belezhkov.
Since December 2021, he has also been studying the gaïda (Bulgarian bagpipes) with Emmanuel Frin - with whom he also regularly attends master classes on the Bulgarian style of playing - out of an interest in the instrument's timbre and to expand his knowledge of the Bulgarian repertoire. He also took private lessons in Bulgaria with Kostadin Atanasov in 2023.
Throughout his career, he has also honed his skills with musicians such as Eléonore Fourniau, Mehmet Salih Inan, Henri Agnel, Efrén López, Laurent Clouet, Bénédicte Jucquois and Kelly Thoma. He was also one of the musicians on stage at Kelly Thoma's concert and her guests at the Eurofonik 2023 festival.
He currently plays in the bands Soñj (musiques anciennes occidentales et musiques anciennes et populaires d’Orient), le trio Nava (music with nomadic temperaments) and is at the initiative of a new project in creation around Bulgarian music, the Sugar Bulgar quintet, whose first concerts are scheduled for 2025.