Anne Paceo is a French percussionist who has developed a variety of sounds, but always with her own unique and recognizable style.
With her work S.H.A.M.A.N.E.S she invites us to explore our spiritual interiority through shamanic and therapeutic sounds, capable of reconnecting us to the Cosmos and to our own imagination.
S.H.A.M.A.N.E.S consists of several histories which in the end construct our History, a blend of real worlds and parallel worlds, with which shamans engage. “It’s a way of returning to a profoundly organic, essential sound,” emphasizes Anne, “of cultivating the autonomy offered by drums and song, as such ancestral instruments are both free-spirited and portable.”
At once intimate and universal, S.H.A.M.A.N.E.S also bears the mark of a powerful woman in a world of often hidden possibilities.

Anne Paceo: drums, vocals, kalimba
Isabel Sorling: vocals, keyboards
Christophe Panzani: sax, keyboards
Tony Paeleman: rhodes, keyboards

Born in France, Anne Paceo spent her childhood in Daloa, Ivory Coast, hearing the beat of great drum masters practicing next to her family’s home. Anne Paceo chose the drums. The option forces admiration as the number of women drummers can still be counted on the fingers of one hand. But Anne Paceo has the magic touch. And a hell of a technique acquired at the Paris National Conservatory of music.
At the age of 19, she began a career as an accompanist with an astonishing array of artists ranging from Archie Shepp to Philippe Catherine, via John Mc Laughlin, Charlie Haden, Rhoda Scott, Michel Legrand, Christian Escoudé, Rick Margitza, Henri Texier, China Moses, Leyla McCalla, Andy Sheppard.
In 2008 and 2010 she published “Triphase” and “Empreintes”, trio albums where she co-composes the music with her two stage companions Leo Montana & Joan Eche-Puig. She then makes her first steps as a composer.
With the composite album released in 2016, in which she explores at once pop, jazz and hip hop, followed by the live album Fables of Shwedagon (2018), recorded live with musicians from Myanmar, a signature talent for melody and musical poetry clearly emerges.
In 2019, she was invited as a mentor to the Montreux Jazz Academy to teach alongside John Mc Laughlin and the Snarky Puppy. In 2022, when S.H.A.M.A.N.E.S was released, the press wrote: “S.H.A.M.A.N.E.S seems to be an achievement, perhaps an apotheosis”.

S.H.A.M.A.N.E.S at Fabbrica Europa is supported by Fondazione Nuovi Mecenati – Fondazione franco-italiana di sostegno alla creazione contemporanea.

The concert is part of the Florence Art Week 2023 programme (September 28 – October 8).

photo: Sylvain Gripoix, detail