Michael Attias

The product of migrations spanning North Africa, the Middle East, Western Europe and the American Midwest, Michael Attias has been active in New York City as leader, sideman, composer, and improvisor since 1994.

Concerts in clubs and festivals throughout the US, Europe, the Middle East and Japan have brought him together with such musicians as Anthony Braxton, Paul Motian, Oliver Lake, Butch Morris and Anthony Coleman. He has released two albums as leader in the last three years, Renku and Credo, for Playscape and Clean Feed respectively. Both were warmly received by critics and featured on several end-of-the-year lists of Top Releases. He's currently enjoying rich activity both as sideman and leader in multiple overlapping projects often featuring Tony Malaby, Nasheet Waits, Russ Lossing, John Hebert, Sean Conly, and many others.

In recent news, Attias could be heard on the Sony Music Fall 2007 release of the Hino/Kikuchi Quintet: Counter Current, with Paul Motian and Thomas Morgan. His trio Renku, with John Hebert and Satoshi Takeishi, completed its first European tour in January 08, and in May 08, he made his debut at the Village Vanguard in Paul Motian's Trio 2000+2. In June, both Renku and his Quintet recorded live albums at the Coimbra Jazz Festival to be released on Clean Feed in 2009. Other upcoming releases Volume 5 of Paul Motian’s On Broadway for Winter&Winter, John Hebert's Byzantine Monkey for Firehouse 12, and Taylor Ho Bynum’s Positive Catastrophe for Cuneiform.

Attias is currently creating a live score for Notes From Underground, directed by Robert Woodruff, to be performed at the Yale Repertory Theatre in New Haven in Spring 2009.