The Collective
Thomas Nguyen
It was at the Conservatoire of Reims that Thomas Nguyen first honed his piano skills and discovered the great masters of classical music. He quickly turned to composition, drawing inspiration both from Western “art music” and from other musical styles. The composer acknowledges influences as varied as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Claude Debussy, Richard Wagner, and Maurice Ravel, whom he has admired since his youth, as well as film composers such as John Williams, Michel Legrand, and Bernard Herrmann, and rock bands such as Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Queen. His music has been performed by many vocal and instrumental soloists: Sergey Malov, Thomas Bloch, Annabelle Jarre, Jérémie Billet, Pauline Haas, Ambroisine Bré, Jean-Christophe Lanièce, the Akilone Quartet, the Akébia Quintet…
Thomas Nguyen sought to open his musical universe to other art forms and, in 2008, founded the Collectif Io, a multidisciplinary artistic ensemble with which he has built a repertoire of pocket operas and musical tales.
He has collaborated with numerous conductors, dramaturgs, stage directors, and choreographers, including Mikaël Serre, Kitsou Dubois, Valentine Losseau, Bertrand Causse, Yann Molénat, Néry Catineau, and Paul Nguyen. He has been invited as a composer to many festivals: Paris Jeunes Talents, Les Vacances de Monsieur Haydn, Les Flâneries Musicales, and the Biennale of Vocal and Contemporary Music in Firminy, which awarded him a composition prize in 2018 for Télescopes Versifiés, and then the City of Firminy Prize in 2020 for L’Asile Ami.
Between 2018 and 2023, he served as composer-in-residence at the Opéra de Reims. Alongside his stage and concert works, Thomas Nguyen regularly composes music for documentaries (ARTE, FRANCE TV). He made his first steps in cinema in 2022, when several of his compositions appeared in Gaspar Noé’s film Vortex. He continues to collaborate as a pianist, arranger, and musical director with numerous artists representative of contemporary musical creation and takes part in various tours in France and abroad.
IO: TRANSFORMATION AND RESILIENCE
Io, a young priestess serving Hera, the wife of Zeus, falls hopelessly in love with him. To protect her from his wife’s jealousy, the king of Olympus transforms her into a white heifer. But Hera, suspicious, demands the animal as a gift and places it under the guard of Argus, the giant with a hundred eyes.
Zeus then sends Hermes to free her by putting Argus to sleep before killing him. In retaliation, Hera sends a gadfly to torment the heifer without rest. Io then becomes the heroine of a wandering and painful epic across seas and continents, until she reaches Egypt, where she regains her human form and gives birth to a line of founders of prosperous cities.
IO SYMBOLIZES RESILIENCE
Despite the loss of her humanity, exile, and suffering, she survives. This myth represents the ability to endure hardships and to rebuild oneself, giving a new meaning to one’s existence.
By taking the name of the heroine of this myth, the Collectif Io addresses the issues of its time, creating committed works and operas.
Repertoire
Operas
2022: Xynthia, l’odyssée de l’eau (Xynthia, the Water Odyssey), opera for 4 singers, 1 actress, 1 dancer, and 5 musicians, freely inspired by Un ennemi du peuple by Henrik Ibsen
2018: Le Miroir d’Alice (Alice’s mirror), opera for 7 singers and 13 musicians, based on Lewis Carroll
2015: La Tranchée des Berlingots, “opéra de poche” for 4 singers and orchestra
2011: La Petite Marchande d’Allumettes (The Little Match Girl), “opéra de poche” for 2 actors, 3 singers, and 10 musicians, based on the tale by Andersen
Musical Tales
2025: Pierre, le loup… et la petite fille qui voulait des histoires (Pierre, the Wolf and the little girl who wanted to hear stories), based on Peter and the Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev and Contes 1,2,3,4 by Thomas Nguyen, after Eugène Ionesco
2021: Contes 1, 2, 3, 4 (Tales 1, 2, 3, 4), musical tale for wind quintet and narrator, after the tales of Eugène Ionesco
2016: L’Histoire de Momotaro (The story of Momotaro), musical tale for percussion trio and narrator
2014: Le violon virtuose qui avait peur du vide (The Virtuoso Violin who was afraid of the void), musical tale for solo violin, string quartet, choir, and narrator
Cross-disciplinary forms
2024: La mélancolie de Zidane (Zidane’s Melancholy), for one dancer and one drummer, after a text by Jean-Philippe Toussaint
2020: Au fil de l’eau (Following the Water), musical nap for mezzo-soprano, harp, and headphones
2019: Quand tout sera blanc (When All Will Be White), musical poem for 1 singer, 2 dancers, and 3 musicians
2017: <em “>Les Contes à quatre mains (Four-Handed Tales), duo for narrator and pianist
2014: Aventures surréalistes (Surrealist Adventures), sensory poetry, after the work of Salvador Dalí
2009: Dreamland, for dancer, actor, rock band, and string quartet, after E.A. Poe
Associated artists
Samuel Allain
Sound Designer – Sound technician
Jimmy Boury
Lighting Designer
Charlotte Gautier Van Tour
Set Designer – Visual Artist
Lancelot Hamelin
Author
Anaïs Heureaux
Costume Designer
Mikaël Serre
Director
Maxime Lance
Sound Designer – Sound Technician
Anne-Claire Lemaître
Choir Conductor for the Collectif Io Youth Company
Léo Perlot-Lhuillier
Stage Director for the Collectif Io Youth Company – Actor
Néry Catineau
Author – Actor
Bertrand Causse
Whistler – Conductor
Christian Ravelomaniraka
Stage Manager
Damien Richard
Graphic Designer
Julianne Surdeau
Choreographer for the Collectif Io Youth Company
Pierre Tanguy
Sound Designer – Drummer
Production team
Agnès Prévost
Production Administrator
Victoria Kahn
International and European projects Coordinator