Neil Saidi & César Poirier

Neil Saidi is a young French saxophonist and composer. He studied at the CNSM in Paris and at the New School for Jazz in New York. Currently, he is the artistic director of the Zoot Collectif, founded in 2016, and of the label Zoot Records, which aims to promote projects by young artists contributing to the renewal of the French and international jazz scene. Neil composes and arranges music for small and large ensembles (Neil Saidi Trio, Zoot Octet, N.Codjia & N.Saidi 5tet) as well as the “Zoot Symphonic Orchestra,” for which he is composing a three-part suite for symphony orchestra, to be performed in 2022 at the Théâtre des Champs Élysées. He is the initiator of the project “Pannonica,” a creation by the Zoot Octet featuring Natalie Dessay, centered around the life of the famous jazz baroness. As a finalist of the Jazz à la Défense springboard festival in 2018 with the Zoot Octet, he won the first prize of the Sunside trophies in 2021 with the “Neil Saidi Trio.” In 2022, he opened the Zoot Studios in the heart of Paris, a new rehearsal and recording venue for jazz musicians in Paris. Neil maintains close ties with the New York scene through numerous stays, concerts, and recordings.

César Poirier started playing classical clarinet at the age of 10 and taught himself to play the saxophone at the age of 16. He lives in Paris and performs as a sideman, among others, with Yonathan Avishai’s “Modern Times Quintet,” Jérôme Etcheberry’s “Satchmocracy,” Louis Cole, Géraud Portal, Leon Parker, Tchavolo Schmidt, Frank Amsallem, Ibrahim Maalouf, Luigi Grasso’s “Greenwich Sessions,” the “Amazing Keystone Big Band,” Paris Jazz Sessions, Michel Legrand, Paris Swing Collectif, Umlaut Big Band, Zoot Collectif, and Natalia M King. He leads his own group “VIVARIUM” (Zoot Records, release 2024).