Chef Menteur is a non-profit association that supports unconventional artistic and creative projects. Affirming its roots in popular culture, music, and experimentation, each creation navigates between written, oral, and/or improvised music (open writing), while paying particular attention to contemporary societal issues and the role of artists in this context.

It was following the experience of the project “100 guitares sur un bateau ivre (100 guitars on a drunken boat)” a creation for 100 electric guitars by Gilles Laval (CD on Cuneiform Records), that the idea of creating a nomadic European school was born. Nicolas Sidoroff and Gilles Laval have been working together for several years, both within and outside the association, as musicians, composers, teachers, and researchers. Together, they conceived this nomadic school project as an extension of their reflections and activities.

Coming from the alternative hardcore scene in the 1980s, Gilles Laval has been running the Chef menteur association since the 2000s. He has more than 20 CDs to his credit. He is also coordinator of the amplified music department and teacher of electric guitar and free improvisation at the National School of Music and Dramatic Arts (ENMDAD) in Villeurbanne. He has also taught and set up the higher education program for the state diploma in amplified music at CEFEDEM AuRA in Lyon. He is the founder and an active member of PaaLabRes (Pratiques artistiques en actes, laboratoire de recherches).

Nicolas Sidoroff is a musician>trainer<researcher. He mainly plays the trumpet, between the brass section in a creole reggae-roots band (Jamaïque and Reunion Island) and various projects inspired by hardcore and improvised music. He is also a researcher at PaaLabRes with Gilles Laval, the “Fabriques de sociologie” network, and the “en-corecherche” constellation around Paris 8 University (PhD defended in December 2025). This two practices, musicking and researching, feed into his main salaried activity as a trainer at CEFEDEM AuRA, particularly in the life long learning diploma program, for students returning to school with an average age of around 40.