Renaud Garcia-Fons at Valamar Jazz Festival at The Euphrasian Basilica

Renaud Garcia-Fons was born near Paris in 1962 into a family of Catalonian origin, northeastern Spain. He was introduced to music at the age of five, starting with the piano to switch to classical guitar and eventually to double bass as an adolescent. This is how Renaud explains his choice of instrument: "My first encounter with the double bass was at the age of 16. It was love at first sight. I immediately thought that the bass would offer an approach not just to classical music and jazz, but also to the universal language of music".

Renaud studied music at the Paris Conservatory and was taking private lessons from the reputed bass player François Rabbath. He started to play jazz when he joined the band led by trumpet player Roger Guerin and went solo in his twenties, looking for his own musical expression somewhere between jazz, traditional, and contemporary music. Striving to expand the scope of his instrument's performance that would allow him greater improvisation, he added the fifth string to his double bass. He then combined this invention with his arco and pizzicato techniques to come up with a unique style, welcomed by a wide musical audience. His virtuosity earned him the title of "the Paganini of double bass", even though a comparison with Astor Piazzolla, Jimmy Hendrix or Paco de Lucia would have be more appropriate, as all these masters reinvented the possibilities of their instruments....

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Renaud Garcia-Fons was born near Paris in 1962 into a family of Catalonian origin, northeastern Spain. He was introduced to music at the age of five, starting with the piano to switch to classical guitar and eventually to double bass as an adolescent. This is how Renaud explains his choice of instrument: "My first encounter with the double bass was at the age of 16. It was love at first sight. I immediately thought that the bass would offer an approach not just to classical music and jazz, but also to the universal language of music".

Renaud studied music at the Paris Conservatory and was taking private lessons from the reputed bass player François Rabbath. He started to play jazz when he joined the band led by trumpet player Roger Guerin and went solo in his twenties, looking for his own musical expression somewhere between jazz, traditional, and contemporary music. Striving to expand the scope of his instrument's performance that would allow him greater improvisation, he added the fifth string to his double bass. He then combined this invention with his arco and pizzicato techniques to come up with a unique style, welcomed by a wide musical audience. His virtuosity earned him the title of "the Paganini of double bass", even though a comparison with Astor Piazzolla, Jimmy Hendrix or Paco de Lucia would have be more appropriate, as all these masters reinvented the possibilities of their instruments.

As a member of Orchestre des Contrebasses and later of Orchestre National de Jazz, Renaud deepened his understanding of jazz and improvisation, which introduced him to the leading European and American jazz musicians. His broad musical interests, spanning from classical music and jazz to flamenco, Mediterranean and Oriental tradition, resulted in a collaboration with a number of top musicians from a variety of genres and nationalities all over the world.
Renaud led musically diverse groups including the Oriental Bass Ensemble, Navigatore Quintet and Octet, but his recent performances are mostly solo or with his La Linea del Sur trio/quartet.
Not only has Renaud been acclaimed for his outstanding interpretation, but also for his compositions performed on stages across the world. He received a number of prestigious awards such as ECHO Deutsche Musikpreis for foreign bass player of the year and Giraddillo de Oro for flamenco performer of 2010 – the first of a kind awarded to a bass player.

He recorded nine albums for the German label Enja, and the last, released in March 2012, brings audio and video recordings of two solo concerts performed in the enchanting ambience of the Marcevol Monastery in September 2011.

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