“Music is a bit like math to me” | EUROtoday

Cwhite hem and garnet velvet jacket, Riopy shows a severe air in entrance of his black grand piano. But do not be fooled by appearances, this self-taught artist is just not a pianist just like the others. He can also be able to taking part in his favourite instrument in flip-flops or barefoot, sufficient to make purists scream.

It’s tough to label this forty-something with the physique of a mannequin who survived a cult. We classify him within the “neoclassical” class however we invite him to jazz festivals – “We accept anyone!” “, he laughs – he opened a Lana del Rey concert in Hyde Park, in front of 50,000 people, the pianist and composer handles improvisation and humor on stage while by recounting snippets of his turbulent life. Neither quite classical nor really pop, his music – solo piano which invites relaxation –, sometimes compared to that of Philip Glass or Sofiane Pamart, took him to the top of the American Billboard Classical Chart for 147 weeks.

This self-made artist has already released four albums* and has a billion streams alone. However, Jean-Philippe Rio-Py – his real name –, French by origin and today Franco-British, is still little-known in France. The one who defines himself as a “citizen of the world” saw his career take off in England and remains a little apprehensive about performing on the French stage. “France is complicated…” he confided before a Parisian concert. French arrogance, no doubt? Riopy runs away from her. He’s a skinned person who can be healed.

ALSO READ Meeting with Victor Le Masne: “The music of the Olympics no longer belongs to me and I am very happy about it! » Sometimes looking vague, the pianist speaks quickly and is familiar from the start. His past, long hidden, he no longer hides it: Riopy grew up in a sect in Deux-Sèvres, surrounded by his mother and four brothers and sisters. A castle at the end of a wooded avenue, where the guru was a strong woman who ruled her world from her throne. The memories of the child of barely 9 years old come back: “Yes, she had a real throne in the living room! Sometimes, you were brought in front of the throne, you sat on the ground, there were around forty people around you…” he says, a slight hair on his tongue.

He does not want to show off but describes mental manipulation and evokes punishments and abuse, all this “in the name of God” or to “bring out (his) ego”. A journey that he has only been able to witness for a few years. “It was a bit of a defect, even my friends didn’t know it. » He transformed this “nightmare” into “strength”.

In his head, numbers become notes

In his misfortune, he was “lucky” to go to school – under supervision – and above all to discover the piano. “Music saved my life!” » With him, the sentence, which may seem a little vague, takes on its full meaning. He was around two years old when he came across an old, dilapidated piano abandoned in a corner of the castle. Her little hands rest on it, first the left, then the right and the sound resonates like a drop of rain falling. A magical world opens up to him, it will be his refuge.

He trains whenever he can, in secret, because here, music is prohibited, just like television or any other means of communication. The child prodigy is made up of instinct. He counts a lot, all the time – in fact “it has become OCD” – and in his head, the numbers become notes. With sparkling eyes, he explains his self-taught method: “Music is a bit like math for me, when the numbers are perfectly positioned, it’s like Indiana Jones’ treasures, you find the code and the door opens! »

At the age of 15, while he played more and more and less and less discreetly, the gourelle got rid of the piano, passing this choice off as a “divine will”. “So I continued to play in my head,” he continues. I wrote a lot of texts, poems… They burned everything, including the photos. I don’t know what I looked like when I was little. » Sometimes, we shaved the head of this kid considered too effeminate and we dressed him in adult clothes.

All the classical French musicians looked at me with disdain

To hold on, he repeated to himself: “At 18, I will leave. » With the baccalaureate in his pocket, he keeps his word and runs away. “It was the day I cried the most in my life. » But freedom does not taste as promised. He found a small job in Poitiers, and with his 300 francs of savings, flew to Los Angeles, where he hoped to make a living from his music. The American dream turns into a struggle, he cleans the toilets of a hotel, finds himself on the street for a time… Back in France, he becomes a pawn in a boarding school, then goes to Paris. Listening to him, no one gives him a chance: “When I said that I was a pianist, people gave me the image that I was just… shit! All the classical French musicians looked at me with disdain. » A manager even told him one day: “If you don’t play Chopin, you’re not a pianist!” »

Tired of this “narrow” spirit, he takes his unhappiness across the Channel, frequents piano bars, subsists between alcohol, cannabis and suicide attempts. A salesman in a music store in Reading (west of London), he strums in his spare time and is spotted by a teacher for deaf children from Oxford. “His name was Michael Freeman, you can’t make that up! » The man pushed him to enroll at Oxford Brookes University, where he won a scholarship to study music. Then the doors open. Finally.

Create your destiny

He plays in front of Chris Martin, the leader of Coldplay who, captivated by his performance, offers him a piano, he is asked to create advertising credits (Ikea, Armani, Peugeot, etc.) and film trailer music, he tastes the jet-setter life. “I earn a good living, I do international commercials, private concerts, I have an apartment of more than 100 m² with three meters of ceiling and my grand piano in the middle, I travel between London, LA, Beijing… I do what I dream of, I’m supposed to be happy but I still have my depression, my anxiety, my suicidal thoughts. » One day, “completely stoned”, he found himself on the floor of his home, no longer able to breathe.

“I stopped everything overnight! he swears, slamming his fist into his hand. I had no choice, I was dying. » The one who became his wife, and with whom this daddy hen has three children, takes him to a hot yoga class. “As someone who grew up in a somewhat strange environment, anything spiritual didn’t interest me. At yoga, when we did “Om-Shanti-Shanti”, I lost myself! I only took the physical side. » Overnight – “I know, it sounds cliché” – he became vegetarian, began to fast, meditate, devoured books on the neuroplasticity of the brain, had quite mystical experiences, like “an out-of-body experience”. … Recently, he has been leading a meditation program for neophytes (Tune your mind), listening on the platforms.

ALSO READ Meet Agnès Jaoui: “Women have the right to be as stupid as men! » “Either you are a victim, or you create your destiny,” he repeats to himself like a mantra. If Jean-Philippe Rio-Py got by thanks to this life discipline – “a routine, not a ritual”, he wants to clarify –, the one who lives today in Lisbon does not want to transform himself into his turn as a guru. “The artist who does good”, according to Warner Music which publishes it, receives numerous confessions at the end of each concert. It also makes you cry a lot. “People often have a personal story with my music and sometimes one of pain,” he notes.

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Answer

His anti-depression recipe in a society which, in line with him, “lacks meaning”, can also be to avoid anxiety-provoking information and sure social networks: “It’s extremely dangerous, words can kill! » At the risk of appearing naive or utopian, he prefers to continue to convey “positive messages”. “A smile, saying “hello”, “thank you”… Just by doing that, we are able to change the world and I believe it’s pressing. »

* The final one, Thrive (Warner Classics).