Cultural studio
Culture, differently.
Before the code, there was the stage. API-Air extends that musical journey into a cultural studio: talks, workshops, live events and augmented sound design. The same conviction as everywhere else: a demanding standard in the service of creation.
Where we come from
Behind API-Air is Pierre Cherbero: a pianist, composer and singer, conservatoire-trained in classical music before heading towards jazz, blues, chanson and world music.
From Bordeaux to New Orleans, from Madagascar to Marseille, by way of Morocco and Scandinavia, he has toured the stages: resident pianist at Le Violon Dingue in Nantes, international tours with Gabacho Maroc (gnawa afro-jazz) and Ms Nickki & Memphis Soul Connection (Mississippi soul), from the New Orleans JazzFest to Montreal's. A solo album in 2015, Voyage dans la dispersion et Retrouvailles.
Today in Marseille, he leads Cactus Box, a jazz-rap quartet weaving piano, vocals, trombone, beatbox and rap — a first album in the works. That story isn't a backdrop: it is the foundation of API-Air's cultural studio.
"A rebellious classicist, a conservatoire renegade… somewhere between Thelonious Monk and Tom Waits." — Ici et Là / L'Officieux Magazine
What we offer
From the talk-concert to the connected instrument, four ways of bringing music to life — all rooted in the same life on stage.
01Talks
The history of music
A talk-concert: we tell the story, we play, we make you listen.
Talks illustrated live on piano and voice, for libraries, schools, festivals and cultural venues. Three flagship themes:
- New Orleans — the cradle of jazz and African-American music.
- Music of revolt — songs of commitment, protest and rupture.
- Alternative rock — movements, aesthetics and legacies.
Highlight — artistic direction for La Marseillante, a European cycle celebrating the Marseillaise: two evenings, one jazz, one hip-hop, on the theme "Anthems and revolutionary songs". A Prodig'Art production.
02Workshops & outreach
Creating together, from age 6
Music as a collective playground: voice, body and imagination as the only instruments.
With the Cactus Box collective, we run collaborative creation workshops at the crossroads of jazz, rap and beatbox. A team of four complementary artists (harmony, rhythm and beatbox, writing and stage, melody).
- The urban orchestra — composing an original track from A to Z (rhythm, harmony, writing).
- The soundtrack — telling a story through sound (foley, sound design, film-concert).
- The groove circle — improvisation, listening and letting go (Circle Songs, soundpainting).
Audiences: schools (primary to high school), music schools, community centres, underserved groups. From short tasters to full creation journeys.
03Live events
Coming soon to the stage
In developmentWe are building a live-events offer — programming, musical performances and artistic direction.
04Augmented sound design
GloveSynth
R&D
Movement becomes music.
At the frontier of music and technology, GloveSynth is an experimental stage instrument: a MIDI glove (motion and flex sensors, Arduino, BLE MIDI) that drives a sound engine in real time, paired with a Hammond melodica and an effects chain. Drum machine, looper, clip launcher, gestural melodic generator.
It is our creative R&D ground: IoT and embedded systems in the service of live performance, built for the Cactus Box stage.
Our common thread
Talk, workshop, stage or connected instrument: bringing tradition and exploration into dialogue, the demanding and the playful, the human and the machine. Culture as much as technology: tools in the service of collective expression.
A cultural project, a talk, a stage?