Loic Sanlaville is a musician, composer and sound engineer born in France but considers India to be his spiritual home. His earliest memory is at the age of 6, discovering the sound of music through the vibration of strings on a guitar. The instrument would later become his life’s calling. After spending much of his childhood self-studying music, he enrolled academically to train as a sound engineer at Studio M in Lyon and pursued a Master’s degree in Guitar from the Conservatoire de Chambéry.
As a musician, Loic is particularly attracted to rhythm, sound and improvisation. He believes music happens when musicians converse together with their instruments. The pursuit of spontaneity by default led him to the doors of Jazz music. In New York, as part of his jazz education, he attended masterclasses from saxophonist & composer Steve Coleman and guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg, and took private lessons with Rotem Sivan.
A backpacking trip to India in the late 2000s, further altered the course of his personal and musical journey as he discovered his love for the ancient Indian percussion Tabla. His formative knowledge of the instrument came from teacher Pandit Kalinath Mishra in Mumbai.
During his stint in India, Loic was part of the True School of Music’s inaugural faculty and headed the sound engineering department for two years.
He played a broad range of styles- jazz, Blues, Hindustani classical & world music, as a soloist and band musician with Zuper Fast Trio, Luis Trio, Borders, a quintet with Funkoffenado, and World Ethnic Music Ensemble. He has performed at several venues including the Kala Ghoda festival in Mumbai, Kamani Auditorium, and Lalit Kala Akademis International Kala Mela 2018 in Delhi, The Piano Man, Alliance Francaises music festivals, International Jazz Festival in Madras and Pune, Kumbh Mela in Ujjain.