Biography

Born in Paris in 1982, Léonard Lasry began playing piano at an early age and started composing his first melodies by the time he was ten. His debut album Des illusions, released when he was twenty-four, immediately revealed a distinctive artistic sensibility rooted in the timeless tradition of French chanson. The record feels deliberately detached from contemporary trends: although released in 2006, it could just as easily belong to another era.

Lasry’s musical imagination has always been closely tied to cinema. He grew up admiring the film scores of Francis Lai and Michel Legrand and developed a deep fascination for the French New Wave, particularly the films of Jacques Demy. The cinematic worlds of Claude Lelouch and Pedro Almodóvar also shaped his artistic sensibility.

From the beginning, Lasry chose a multidisciplinary path. He founded the independent label 29 Music while simultaneously partnering with his brother to launch the luxury eyewear brand Thierry Lasry. This dual involvement in music and fashion would become a defining element of his creative identity.

In 2010 he briefly launched his own jewelry line, which was distributed in Japan through H.P. France boutiques and at the flagship store of designer Hiroko Koshino, as well as in France at Franck & Fils.

Lasry’s creative process is strongly driven by visual inspiration. For him, every melody begins with an image — sometimes cinematic, sometimes drawn from fashion. A silhouette, a look, a gesture, or a particular atmosphere can become the starting point for the musical landscapes he creates.

Throughout the 2010s, this dialogue between sound and image led him to develop several hybrid artistic projects. In 2012 he collaborated with filmmaker Gérard Courant and artist Elisa Point on L’Exception, a multimedia performance inspired by the aesthetics of 1960s cinema. The project combined video projections and music, featuring iconic figures such as Monica Vitti, Catherine Spaak and Brigitte Bardot.

In 2014 he met New York–based photographer and stylist Maripol, known for her association with Madonna and her work at Fiorucci in the 1980s. Their collaboration led to the recording of several vintage-inspired disco tracks, with Maripol performing vocals under Lasry’s direction — somewhere between Amanda Lear, Marianne Faithfull and Grace Jones.

These songs soon attracted the attention of the fashion world. The duo created original music and remixes for several major fashion houses, including a project for Hugo Boss designed by Jason Wu in 2015 and the single Words I Want to Hear for Valentino in 2016. Between 2017 and 2021, Lasry also composed and produced a series of original songs for the ready-to-wear collections of Maria Grazia Chiuri at Dior.

His musical signature — somewhere between pop and cinematic composition, enriched by a subtle vintage sensibility — gradually gained wider recognition. After working with photographer and filmmaker Ali Mahdavi on the project Milky Way, Lasry produced the track Strip-Tease-moi for the legendary Parisian cabaret Crazy Horse. The song became a permanent act in the show Totally Crazy. He also composed music for performer Viktoria Modesta’s show Bionic Girl, and on rare occasions performed his own songs at the cabaret — an unusual privilege for the venue.

Lasry has also composed music for major brands including Cartier, Trish McEvoy, and for the documentary trilogy Fashion! directed by Olivier Nicklaus and produced by Mademoiselle Agnès.

In 2019 he composed the official song for the iconic Paris club Castel, which subsequently offered him a monthly residency titled Les Mercredis de Léonard Lasry.

Through his label 29 Music, Lasry has produced nearly seventy releases, including several albums by Swedish trip-hop singer Jay-Jay Johanson and new recordings by cult French performer Marie France.

Alongside his production work, Lasry has continued his own career as a singer-songwriter. After Avant la première fois (2017), he released Au hasard cet espoir in 2021, largely composed between Capri and Positano and inspired by what he describes as a distinctly “European” sensibility.

In 2021 his work intersected with several of the legends he had long admired. His song Let’s Disco was remixed by Giorgio Moroder for Dior’s Autumn-Winter fashion show, while he composed five songs for the 50th studio album by Sylvie Vartan.

He later collaborated with actress Charlotte Rampling on the album De l’amour mais quelle drôle d’idée, released in 2022 and praised internationally for its unique artistic approach.

In 2024 Lasry released Le grand danger de se plaire, an album influenced by 1990s sounds, followed in 2025 by the compilation Que savons-nous de nous ?, gathering fifteen duets recorded over the previous decade with artists including Fanny Ardant, Sylvie Vartan, Charlotte Rampling, Maria de Medeiros, Françoise Fabian and many others.

After performing at venues such as Beaubourg, the Crazy Horse, Café de la Danse, Silencio and La Nouvelle Eve in Paris, as well as in Tokyo and Brussels, Léonard Lasry begins a new tour in autumn 2025 with concerts scheduled in Paris, Bordeaux, Lyon, Switzerland and other European cities.