Geoffroy Dell'Aria

Immersed in music when I was very young, I began to show interest in bagpipes (and more generally folk music) at the age of 6, starting to follow music lessons first with Jean-Pierre Van Hees in 2006 and then with Pieterjan van Kerckhoven and François Lazarevitch.

A few years later, I got into the world of folk percussions (bodhrán, spoons, bones, darbouka…), recorder and ethnic flutes (Irish whistles, siyotankas, sopilkas, shakuhachi…), and also began to study Medieval and Renaissance music with Thomas Baeté and Aline Hopchet.

Then, for some years, I have been member of the Belgian bands Ithilien (2012-2016) and La Maisnie Hellequin (2014-2019), releasing a few albums with them and touring a lot in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands.

In 2018, I joined the Canadian project Les Bâtards du Nord and took part in the recording of their fourth album, Racines Nordik, and their next productions.

One year later, in 2019, I joined the famous Latvian pagan metal band Skyforger as live and session musician.

Finally, in 2020, using my backgrounds both as historian and musician, I created Paydretz, a musical and historical project about the Wars in the Vendée and the Chouanneries (1793-1800). The first album, Chroniques de l’insurrection, has been released in October 2021, under the French label Antiq Records, as I also joined Avel, an atmospheric neofolk project from Brittany.

Furthermore, I regularly appears on various international projects to play or record as guest musician, such as with the Canadian-American band Gone In April, the Russian band Passéisme, the French bands Hanternoz, Moisson Livide, Grylle, Véhémence and Wyntër Ärvń, the Chinese project The Samans, the Italian act Dawn of A Dark Age or the Irish band Cruachan.

Deeply human and open to the world, I love nothing more than transdisciplinarity and never hesitate to combine my academic and artistic skills to carry out various and authentic projects!