Engé Helmstetter

Prolific musician and type-setter, Engé learn the traditional guitar towards the 10 years age. Very quickly, its attraction for freedom finds in the jazz manouche a dreamed dimension, he exert there consequently as an autodidact and with the specific assistance of sizes of the kind. A family context very favorable to artistic blooming gives the opportunity to him to wipe the plasters very early (1st round in Hungary at the age of 12 years within the framework of a cultural exchange between Strasbourg and Budapest). Quite naturally it takes part in the adventure "De la source à la mer", film carried out by its family. Single testimony in Europe, ode lyric of a family Tzigane, the film is a significant success and obtains many national distinctions.

It composes at 18 years the music of a telefilm diffused in France, Switzerland and Canada, "Le sapin de grès (the sandstone fir tree)".He melts the first grinding of its musical formation in 1994. Very quickly the group cuts a notoriety growing in the north of Alsace then in the area of Strasbourg. They record their first C.D in 1996 and play in many festivals in particular the abroad (Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, slovénie, Spain, Italy, Hungary, the United States).

Artistic director of the international festival Tzigane of 1999 to 2003, it marks this event of his personal vision while innovating considerably: creation of a spectacle of circus manouche "dji or kamlébén" (1999), writing and coordination of the musical spectacles "Maré sinté" (2000), "Dji or kamlében" (2001), "Ochto guitari" (2002). It thus ensures the artistic direction of 17 artists, shouldered by Diependaele stone for the aspects of setting in scene in 2000 and 2001. Guitarist, lyric writer, type-setter, arranger, Engé are an artist surprising and demanding. Since June 2003, Engé was centered on the career of its musical formation forsaking voluntarily its cap of organizer. "I feel the need to concentrate my creative energy, the music is a so marvellous thing which it deserves to devote to it all its heart."

The topicality of the guitarist in 2005 will be marked by the release of a new album. On this new opus entitled "Inspirations", the jazzy flavour melt worked-nova it and the rates/rhythms of Central Europe, through four song and six instrumental parts. With eight of the ten titles signed by Engé, the album reflects a double requirement, the style and the opening in the world. "Because the guitar manouche is much more than one school of jazz, it is also a formidable aspiration with freedom."

Tchatcho Helmstetter

Because he is the brother of Engé and Tchatchi Because at the manouches the music is a treasure which one divides in family Because he very early had an attraction for the instruments of the quartet, Tchatcho quite naturally became violonist. After having learned the basic traditional techniques, it entiche of phrased from Stéphane Grapelli or Eddy South. As well at ease in the jazz as in the traditional standards of Central Europe, it plays in a moving and energic style, which had with a very personal play. In June 2003, one saw it playing sides of the best violonists manouches of France and Germany within the framework of the creation "Of the Rhine in the Danube".

Tchatchi Helmstetter

Female presence of the group, with the typified features and the beauty of Esméralda, Tchatchi sings in romanès and French. Sorrow or love songs, the standards of the song Tzigane do not have a secrecy for it. Autodidact, it interprets them with simplicity and freshness inherent in their popular origins. With the wire of the voyages of the Engé group and meetings with other singers Tziganes of Poland, Hungary or Spain, Tchatchi built gradually its universe of song well to it. Often accompanying its services by some steps of dance, Tchatchi is with it only the symbol of the libertarian spirit of the Engé group.

Railo Helmstetter

Formed by Engé as well as the framework of a traditional training, the young guitarist develops as of the age of 13 a technique indicating a great precocity. Remarkable Rythmician, the guitarist with for MUSE music of Django Reinhardt or Bireli Lagrène. At the men "with the soles of wind" the concepts of spontaneousness, vitality and of talent are indissociable intergénérationnelle transmission. For a manouche, the music is business of life and thus of family. Benjamin of the formation and representative of the future generation of the guitarists manouches, Raîlo is the last musical chain link "Engé". He brings to the group the effectiveness of his accompaniment, made of listening and complicity, but also his approach full with astonishment and youth.

Steven Joyce Ames

Formed with the academy of Strasbourg, Joyce HEARTS a long time forsook the instrument on which it shines with the profit of the electronic musics. Between the infinite possibilities that electronics offers, with the emergence of the new musics, and a taste pronounced for the traditional musics, Joyce found its common denominator. Dance-floor with the cabaret Tzigane, swing manouche with the drum & bass, one finds the importance of the dance, at the origin of these musics and their vitality. This intuition traverses the style and phrased of Joyce Ames, giving to the primacy tempo its letters of nobility. Excel technician, the direction of the tempo which it prints with his instrument is hypnotic, carnal, of a frightening rhythmic effect.