Based in Brooklyn, NY, Olivier Glissant is a composer, conductor, producer and  engineer. He spent his childhood in his native Martinique, then went on to study piano in Paris before attending Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1988, where he studied music production & engineering, Jazz and classical composition and conducting. After Boston he set out for New York City which served as a great hub for discovering and playing multiple genres and styles from South American and Caribbean folklore which particularly interested him. Olivier started performing regularly with multiple artists, whether as keyboardist for a Bahia percussion ensemble, on the Forro scene playing accordion, with his Tango and latin Jazz quartet performing works by Piazolla and other South American classics, or producing and playing with a Haitian Roots music group. Olivier also worked with West African bands, producing and performing with artists from Senegal and Mali. He created his own independent record label and production company, Blacksalt Records, for which he recorded and mixed every album. Olivier's influences are many in World music, as well as European classical music. This brought him to collaborate through the years with Philip Glass, Norah Jones, Gilberto Gil, Bill Frisell, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Vinicius Cantuaria, Pete Seeger, John Zorn, Tico da Costa, Thiago Thiago de Mello, Omar Faruk Tekbilek, Yasmin Levy, Yungchen Lhamo, Ballago Thione Seck and more. 

In 2015 Olivier created the Brooklyn Orchestra, a symphonic ensemble dedicated to new music and diversity, and more recently conducted his own creations with the orchestra (Symphony No. 1, the tone poems "Charmeuse de Serpents", "Echaurren", and "Egyptian Nights") at Carnegie Hall and the United Nations in New York, and in Paris in the Panthéon-Sorbonne's Cour d'Honneur. After the cancellation of the Brooklyn Orchestra's inaugural Gala in March 2020, Olivier has been searching for solutions to continue the ensembe's activities and is currently developing an outdoor season in Brooklyn which will also include theater, dance, cinema, opera, visual arts, and will launch officially in April 2021.

Ladja is a work based on footage from 1936 filmed by Katherine Dunham in Martinique, and featuring a traditional fighting dance called Laghia, or Ladja, curiously resembling Capoeira. An orchestral composition was created to make it appear as if the dancers are moving to the music, and modern choreography and concept by Rambert artistic director Benoit Swan-Pouffer was added to create a longer ballet and movie. The Brooklyn Orchestra will be performing with the video as well as Rambert’s live dancers.

Please visit Brooklyn Orchestra’s Instagram, Facebook, website and Olivier’s website for more information.