John Legend productions out 8/30

What a thrill it was for us to produce and arrange three songs on John Legend’s new record “My Favorite Dream”. Sufjan’s productions are jaw droppingly beautiful, expansive, rich and fun Olivier played strings on Sufjan’s productions. We were so honored he recommended us to produce “Maybe”, “Great Great Day” and “Friendship” - We made lush, orchestral, big ol’ productions and John was as open hearted as he was open minded to work with. As always, we worked with incredible musicians, and even our own kids, Gustave and Ernestine, added vocals to the songs. Here is a lyric video to “Maybe”

2 Films We Scored Are Emmy Nominated!

Very happy to see the wonderful filmmakers we work with honored and 2 films we recently scored have been nominated for an Emmy. Jeremy Workman and Rob Lyons directed “Decided Vote” and Yael Melamede directed “Speaking Freely”.

We’ll be talking about our scoring process May 5th

Olivier and I will be taking part in a night of film music May 5th at our beloved arthouse cinema, Upstate Films. We definitely do things in unconventional ways, so it’ll be both fun and scary to dive into talking about that. We’ll show clips from scenes and talk about getting from a blank slate, or a misleading temp, to hopefully a scene-enhancing place. Tickets are available here and it’s hosted by the Hudson Valley Filmmakers.

Music for a play! Our first-

The brilliant director of Turn Every Page, Lizzie Gottlieb, is directing 4000 Miles for the Berkshire Theatre Festival in May 2024 and we wrote the music for it.

This play is extraordinary and you can get tickets here.

Starring the amazing Maria Tucci

Secret Mall Apartment World Premiere at SXSW Film Fest

A film we are just finishing up, “Secret Mall Apartment” will have it’s world premiere at SXSW Film Fest in March. We’ll be there too! We loved this film since the first rough cut we saw of it, and can’t wait for people to see it. It’s directed by Jeremy Workman and executive-produced by Jesse Eisenberg. Read about it here…

Clare & the Reasons to open for Rufus Wainwright

Our ol’ band is coming out of retirement once more to play at the Egg in Albany. It looks EXACTLY like an Egg, and we’re excited because we will be opening for the inimitable, magical, singular, Rufus Wainwright. It’ll be Me (Clare) singing with just a string quartet, Olivier on violin, of course. Get your tickets early, because it’ll surely sell out. Sunday, April 7th. 8:00PM

The New Yorker Releases "Deciding Vote" today!

The perfect home has been found for “Deciding Vote” and it comes out today! Congratulations to the whole crew, especially directors Jeremy Workman and Rob Lyons. We were very inspired while working on this score. It’s also extra cool that Laura Linney is presenting it.

"Deciding Vote" Wins Top Prize at Woodstock Film Festival

A wonderful short we scored called “Deciding Vote” won at one of our favorite festivals, just 15 minutes from where we live, the Woodstock Film Festival. It won best short doc and it’s competition was incredible. Such moving and important films being made. The whole weekend just left us both so reenergized and amazed at the medium of doc film making, and the power it can have.

Clare and Olivier with co director Rob Lyons

"Speaking Freely" on PBS nationwide Sept 22nd

We’ve been so busy, haven’t updated this wee site in ages! A thorough and thoughtful look at the first amendment and all of it’s complexities is captured in a new film we scored, “Speaking Freely”. We loved working with director Yael Melamede and are sure you’ll find this film interesting, informative, and quite frankly, fun to watch. It is airing nationwide on PBS as a part of the American Masters series, Friday, Sept 22nd. We saw it at the premiere at Moma the other night, and we are so happy with how the score turned out and flows through the film.

Clare and Olivier at the Premiere of “Speaking Freely” 9/12/23

We are playing live! July 15th

We are playing live, July 15th at Opus40, in Saugerties NY. You can get tickets here

This is a reunion of our band, Clare & the Reasons, it’s been 10 years, yes, 10… Olivier will open the evening with French cinema music. This is a pretty emotional thing, to dig back into this music, it was such a huge part of our lives, and then things shifted, but it feels magical and healing to dive back in, actually.

Clare & the Reasons plus an opening set to celebrate Bastille Day: musique pour le cinéma Français by Olivier Manchon

5PM Gates / 6PM Show / $15 adv / $20 gate / All Ages

Food by Corners / Drinks by Stockade Tavern

Clare & the Reasons is the faded, but not forgotten project of Clare and Olivier Manchon. They made 3 studio albums and toured around much of the world. Paste Magazine said “It’s music that’s meant to be felt, not just heard.” The Guardian wrote “a sassy blast of symphonic jazz-noir.” The Times of London exclaimed “symphonic pop so swoonsome that the authorities could slap a health warning on it.” NPR radioed “...vintage pop and music-hall McCartneyisms.” The New York Times scribed "orchestral luxury and nuance." Butwhy did Clare & the Reasons fade? Because of the ampersand. Clare never wanted the ampersand, but try telling that to a world who loves them. So, after nearly 10 years of mediation, healing and deciding that ampersands are aok, Clare & the Reasons are reuniting for the first time at Opus 40 July 15th 2023.

French born violinist and multi instrumentalist, Olivier Manchon lives in Kingston NY. He has played with so many folks, such as Van Dyke Parks, My Brightest Diamond, DeVotchKa, Sufjan Stevens, The New Pornographers, Stephane Wrembel, Lionel Loueke, more too, but that’s enough. Olivier mainly does film scoring with his bride Clare Manchon now. He also does a good amount of arranging. He has a deep and saturated knowledge of French film music and will perform some of his favorites at Opus 40. He will then co lead the reunion show of Clare & the Reasons.

Tribeca 2023!

We were so happy to head to Tribeca again this year. This time with a film we scored, the wonderful “Deciding Vote”. 50 years ago, assemblyman George Michaels cast a single vote on New York's abortion bill that changed the course of American history but destroyed his political career in the process.

The team!

Apple TV "Extrapolations" and Amazon's "The Power"

We’re thrilled to announce we have some music in Apple’s “Extrapolations” (starring Kit Harrington, Marion Cotillard, Forest Whitaker, Tobey Maguire, Sienna Miller, Edward Norton and Meryl Streep) episode 7

and Amazon’s “The Power”, (starring Toni Collette) the first 3 minutes of episode 8 opens with our cover of “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”. Both out now!



Turn Every Page is out in Theaters!

Turn Every Page the Adventures of Robert Caro and Robert Gottlieb, is out in theaters and is coming to 100 US cities! The press is absolutely gushing for this film. Check Rotton Tomatoes here. This film has been such honor, not only to write the music for, but also to have collaborated and learned from so many talented people, who made it. This is a movie theater movie, it’s a ride of intellect, heart, wit and words.


La Vie Devant

An incredibly well done Suisse series brought us on board for both songs in every episode of the season, as well as additional scoring. Each episode ends with one of our songs. We have often imagined several of our songs fitting in this coveted space- So it felt very exciting when they asked. It turned out to be a wonderfully fulfilling creative process and “La Vie Devant” will be spreading around the globe from Europe, soon. Thank you show runner
Klaudia Reynicke and Jean-Marc Frohle from Point Prod for having us onboard.

We are playing live... Clare & The Reasons

CANCELLED, WE GOT COVID… ugggg

We used to have a band called Clare & The Reasons, made some records and toured the world. We then settled down to have a family and were lucky enough to start scoring (which we adore), the perfect thing for (mostly) working from home. We will be playing some old songs by our band Clare & the Reasons, and some new songs, at the Old Dutch Church in Kingston NY (truly our favorite room) Friday Sept 23rd. 6:40pm. Michael Arthur will be drawing us live and a doc called “Hello, Bookstore” will be screening after. Get your $11 (wow!!) tickets in advance here An Upstate Films Night, in association with Rough Draft Bookstore.