EARLY PROMISE

By the age of 18, Yoann began tour­ing as lead singer for var­i­ous pop­u­lar gospel, soul, and rhythm & blues bands around France, such as BRBB (Otis Red­ding Trib­ute Band) , The Soul    Trav­el­ers Gospel Quar­tet , Gospel Shak­ers and Gospel Jam . He also cre­ated his own band at the time, along with a trib­ute for Ste­vie Won­der .

Later on, Yoann ap­peared as soloist in the most fa­mous Eu­ro­pean gospel choir, 'Gospel Pour 100 Voix' ('The 100 Voices of Gospel') . His tal­ent was nur­tured and en­hanced through col­lab­o­ra­tion with ex­cel­lent Amer­i­can gospel singers, such as Linda Lee Hop­kins, Jean Car­pen­ter, Francine Ealey Mur­phy, and Tori Robin­son. While as­so­ci­ated with 'Gospel Pour 100 Voix', he per­formed on some of the most pres­ti­gious stages in Eu­rope, in­clud­ing all the Zéniths, Paris-Bercy Arena, and Brus­sel's Cirque Royal in Belgium.

THE HEALING POWER OF MUSIC

In 2008 and at the age of 21, Yoann grad­u­ated as a Music Ther­a­pist from the Uni­ver­sity of Mont­pel­lier. While there, he worked ex­ten­sively with chil­dren suf­fer­ing from autism, and teenagers with stut­tered speech syn­drome (SSS). In the lat­ter case, Yoann was teach­ing from ex­pe­ri­ence, as he him­self has been af­fected by se­vere stut­ter­ing dis­or­der from the age of 3 to 19 years old. He to­tally over­came SSS through the prac­tice of music and med­i­ta­tion.

That same year, Yoann also started to con­duct his own gospel choir, 'Le Choeur En­chanté' and to give singing work­shops all over Eu­rope (Eng­land, Ger­many, Italy, Bel­gium, Swe­den, Aus­tria, etc...).

STUDIES IN INDIA AND FIRST TOUR IN NORTH AMERICA

In 2010, Yoann made a life-chang­ing jour­ney of five months to India, in order to deepen his knowl­edge of music ther­apy and In­dian clas­si­cal music. He came back re­newed and mu­si­cally trans­formed by this unique ex­pe­ri­ence in total im­mer­sion in the In­dian culture.

A few months after, Yoann was in­vited for his first solo tour in Canada , and USA . Dur­ing 3 months, he per­formed more than 50 con­certs in var­i­ous cities and toured US from New York to Los An­ge­les. He in­au­gu­rated a per­sonal per­for­mance style which fea­tured con­certs en­tirely a cap­pella, em­pha­siz­ing on the unique beauty and mov­ing ex­pres­sive­ness of his voice. This en­abled him to pre­sent his music to a whole new au­di­ence and cap­ti­vate new lis­ten­ers, and to sing, for the first time of his car­rer, as guest in the black com­mu­nity churches, where his per­for­mances were over­whelm­ingly well-re­ceived , and where he truly felt home. After this first US tour, Yoann's de­sire to live in Amer­ica was born.

RETURN TO FRANCE AND VICTORY OF THE "SANKOFA SOUL CONTEST"

When he re­turned to France in 2011, Yoann won first place in France's largest Soul music com­pe­ti­tion 'The Sankofa Soul Con­test' , while singing two songs by one of his mu­si­cal he­roes,   Ste­vie Won­der . Yoann's con­test prize was to travel back to the US and have the great op­por­tu­nity to per­form, with Erykah Badu's mu­si­cians back­ing him up . This con­cert was spe­cially     tai­lored for him in Dal­las, Texas. Yoann also used that great tour ex­pe­ri­ence to travel to New Or­leans, where he was in­vited by his friend and New Or­leans na­tive, Craig Adams, a pop­u­lar Amer­i­can Gospel or­gan­ist and singer. Craig in­vited Yoann to sing as guest in many in­flu­en­tial churches of New Or­leans, ac­com­pa­nied by him on keys. These new ex­pe­ri­ences gave to Yoann in­spir­ing and pow­er­ful im­mer­sions into the African Amer­i­can cul­ture and music, with the com­mon ground of an in­cred­i­bly good re­cep­tion from his Gospel and Soul music raised peers    when­ever he performed.

Yoann has also had the honor to per­form as a back­ground singer for out­stand­ing artists such as Ste­vie Won­der , Liz Mc­Comb, Nicole Slack Jones, Helen Carter, and Mar­i­anne Aya Omac.

WINNING THE WORLD FAMOUS TV SHOW "THE VOICE" 

On 18th May 2013, Yoann won the world-fa­mous TV show 'The Voice' in France. With an in­cred­i­ble ren­di­tion of 'The Great­est Love of All' , re­ceiv­ing a stand­ing ova­tion from the stu­dio au­di­ence at the mid­dle of the song, Yoann was se­lected by all four judges to be part of their re­spec­tive teams. The judges were as­ton­ished to dis­cover such a singer in France.

With more than 7 mil­lion view­ers each week - and 10 mil­lion dur­ing the final show - dur­ing 5 months of air­ing, Yoann won over the hearts of mil­lions of peo­ple. Dur­ing his jour­ney on 'The Voice', he cov­ered some of the great­est stan­dards of vocal music, from Pop ('Earth Song' / Michael Jack­son; 'Vole' / Ce­line Dion; 'Call­ing You' / Jevetta Steele) to Soul ('Man's World' / James Brown; 'Can You Feel It?' /Jack­son 5; 'Free' / Ste­vie Won­der) to Gospel music ('Amaz­ing Grace' / in duet with his coach Garou). He did so with ex­tra­or­di­nary vocal agility, dex­ter­ity, and a hum­ble spirit that en­deared him to au­di­ences through­out Europe.

FIRST ALBUM IN FRENCH, SOUNDTRACK OF "BEAUTY & THE BEAST", AND MORE

On the 6th Jan­u­ary 2014, his first album with Uni­ver­sal Music France, 'Quelques Heures Avec Moi', was re­leased. This record em­pha­sized great melodies with deep and yet ac­ces­si­ble lyrics by fa­mous writ­ers like François Wel­gryn (Ce­line Dion, Garou, etc) and Jacques Veneruso (Ce­line Dion, Johnny Hal­ly­day, Tina Arena, etc), his amaz­ing vocal abil­i­ties, and a great crossover of French pop and Amer­i­can soul music. One of the songs on the album, 'Sauras-tu m'aimer?' was spe­cially cho­sen as the world­wide sound­track for the biggest movie of the year in France (36 mil­lion $ bud­get), 'Beauty and The Beast', di­rected by Christophe Gans (with Vin­cent Cas­sel & Lea Sey­doux as first roles). The movie gar­nered the num­ber one movie spot in most coun­tries where it has been aired, and al­lowed Yoann's music to reach a broader in­ter­na­tional audience.

On the same year, Yoann was in­vited by the in­ter­na­tional pop singer Lara Fabian (30 mil­lion records sold world­wide) to record a duet ('On Se Retrou­vera') on the album 'Les En­fants du Top 50', which met great re­cep­tion of the French pub­lic when per­formed live on French TV chan­nel M6.

Ever since, Yoann has been per­form­ing as a solo artist for sold-out shows all over France and abroad (Mau­ri­tius, USA, Canada , Bel­gium , Switzer­land , Nige­ria, etc...). He has also been in­vited to be the opening act for stars as Will I Am (for his AccorArena concert in Paris) or for collaborations with composers such asVladimir Cosma (one of the most prominent soundtrack composers in France).

Always involved in the act of giving, Yoann has been dedicating an appreciable amount of his time to sing for hu­man­i­tar­ian events and char­ity galas in the whole world as well (Eva Lon­go­ria's Global Gift Gala, Les Restos du Coeur Bel­gique, Les Femmes Dy­namisantes de Clar­ins, Tout le Monde Chante Con­tre le Can­cer, Les Pe­tits Princes, Arthri­tis, Leurs Voix pour l'Es­poir, etc).

LIFE BETWEEN USA & FRANCE...

On May 2016, Yoann ob­tained the US Visa of 'Artist with Ex­tra­or­di­nary Abil­i­ties', for 3 years, and moved to NEW YORK for one year.

He per­form­ed in US at many pres­ti­gious venues; among them the most famous 'Ash­ford & Simp­son's Sugar Bar' in Manhattan, where he performed as headline for 4 Blues concerts, plus his first (and sold-out) NYC's solo concert. He did so under the mentorship of the leg­endary Motown composer Va­lerie Simp­son ('Ain't No Moun­tain High Enough', 'I'm Every Woman', 'You're All I Need To Get Bye', etc...) and multi-awarded movie-director Euzhan Palcy ('A Dry White Season', 'Sugar Cane Alley', 'Ruby Bridges', etc), who chose him as her artistic nephew. 

He also sang Gospel in many renowned churches (as Don­nie Mc­Clurkin's PFC, Hezekiah Walker LFC, Harlem Kelly's Tem­ple, Pleas­ant Grove, etc) & Las Vegas Gospel Con­ven­tions (Thomas A. Dorsey's 2017 GMC, James Cleve­land's 2017 GMWA ), as well as special events, as the An­nual Hol­l­i­day Tree Light­ing of Man­hat­tan's Wash­ing­ton Square Park or the Cou­ture Fash­ion Week at Crowne Plaza Times Square Man­hat­tan.

Currently, Yoann is back in PARIS, dividing his time between performances as guest for various music and charity events, and mostly the work of his first English album. This very innovative project will match his talent with complete artistic freedom, exploration of his various mu­si­cal in­flu­ences with the assistance of the best musicians, and, above all, will be entirely based on Musical Improvisation !