Théo Angelopoulous

At just twenty-five years old, Théo Ould sees musical expression as a total art form, and explores all the possibilities of his instrument, the accordion, which he champions with great pride: ‘When I entered the conservatoire and held the instrument in my hands, I was fascinated by the sound as much as the object itself, halfway between a typewriter and an extra-terrestrial contraption: a “playing machine” in every sense of the word… I also discovered what its sound was like and what you could do with it. I learnt what stops that sound from expanding and how to use my whole body as a soundbox.’

This is the final chapter of a trilogy of albums in which I explored and arranged popular songs. The entire project was made in collaboration with vocalists Theo Bleckmann and Kate McGarry, pianist Gary Versace, and the Frankfurt Radio Big Band. For the first recording, Songs I Like A Lot, I selected the majority of the songs for the album. Many of the songs I chose were from my childhood, and as I started to really listen to them again, I was surprised by how well I actually knew them. The second recording, Songs We Like A Lot, is composed primarily of songs that Theo and Kate liked and chose for me to arrange. Uri Caine held down the piano chair on this recording. And for this third and final recording, Songs You Like A Lot, we asked listeners to nominate their favorite songs for me to arrange. We then had an internet-wide vote on a list of nominated songs, and I chose (with the help of Kate, Theo and Gary) from the top 20 most popular songs.