Born on 23 January 1951, Philippe CRASSE founded the Atelier Le LUDION, rue Fermat in Toulouse, with his wife Eve Chaillat on 1976, 15th of June. This first entity evolves in Sarl on 1986, 1st of January.
Professional activities
Founder and statutory manager of the Traditional Manufacture of Limonaires and street organs Le Ludion.
Restoration of automaton instruments for public museums and private collections all around the world.
Creation of automatic musical instruments for French and foreign customers.
Patent for Invention 04.00603 to INPI: Method of musical generation through a new encoding of the data by the use of the chip card as memory support in place of the perforated cardboard.
Expertise of public and private collections, collaboration with various studies of auctioneer, expertise in the judicial framework.
Titles
Head craftsman of Art.
Living Heritage Company - Label awarded by the Ministry of Commerce & SME in 2006, renewed in 2012 and en 2018.
Member of the company of Experts of Justice near the Court of Appeal of Toulouse since 2007.
Member of the Board of Trustees of the company of Experts of Justice near the Court of Appeal of Toulouse, representative of group B-Arts Culture and media.
General secretary from 2012 to 2016
Publisher of the company Gazette until 2016.
Accreditation as an Expert in auctions by the Conseil des Ventes Volontaires C.V.V. N ° 2008-658.
Accreditation as an expert at the C.N.E.S. National Chamber of Experts specialising in objects of Art and Collection in 2010.
Member of the Board of Trustees of the National Chamber
Publisher of Mètis, the information Bulletin of CNES.
Editor of the Collection "Writings of Experts", a set of memoirs supported to obtain the title of expert before the juries of CNES.
Expert member of the European Confederation of Art Experts – CEDEA
Academician of Languedoc since 2015.
Concerts and exhibitions
Curator of Musique en Boites, Boites à Malice exhibition at the Grand Palais in Paris in 1987.
Conception/Realization of Aujourd'ui, c'était déjà demain, exhibition at Bazacle, EDF cultural centre in Toulouse, 1993.
All the music salons - Musicora from the beginning in 1985.
European concerts tour with Haydée ALBA - Opéra Bastille in December 2000, then Rome, Barcelona...
Regular Participation at the festivals of Waldkirch, Thun, Bern, Longiano, Les Gets.
Exhibitions and Concerts in Los Angeles-1987, Chicago-1996 and 2002, Seattle-1998, Orlando-2004; Singapore-1993, Beijing-2005, Moscow – 2006, 2007 & 2008, Rome-2010.
Publications
Exhibition catalog Musique en Boites, Boites à Malice in the Grand Palais in Paris.
Catalogue of the sale of a collection of music boxes Artcurial-Hotel Dassault in Paris.
Exhibition catalog Facture Mécanique française in Ortona (Italy).
Publisher of the quarterly Le Canard de Barbarie since 1996.
Participation in the book The Barrel piano/piano a Cilindro under the direction of Antonio Latanza, chief curator of musical Antiquities of Rome.
Memory supported by the CNES jury on December 9, 2010: La Seconde mort des Instruments de Musique à Mécaniques.
Blowin' in the Wind - à l'écoute des automates Flûtistes, monograph on Alexandre-Nicolas Théroude's masterpiece.
Presentation and workshop : MBSI Annual Convention in Detroit (2010), Chicago (2013), Automata Convention in Morristown (2016 & 2018).
Presentations
Mechanical musical instruments in the streets of Europe in the 19th century
The Breath of Time.
Alexandre-Nicolas Theroude’s Automata flutists.
The Technique in the service of Art.
Automaton, as Object of Power.
Art in motion, from Automata to Kinetic Art.
Musiques en Ors.
Awards
Prisme 1987 awarded by Association des Journalistes de la Décoration et de la Maison.
Manivelle d'or at the festival of Les Gets (Haute Savoie) in 1992.
Faust d’Argent, Toulouse (1996) Forum des Arts de l’Univers Scientifique et Technique.
Prix de la Communication à Musicora (Paris) en 1997.
Prix de la Dynamique Artisanale décerné par la Chambre des Métiers et la BPTP en 1997.
Prix de la Facture Instrumentale du Ministère de la Culture en 2001.
Fleuron d’Or de la Chambre des Métiers et de la Ville de Toulouse en 2003.
Prix de l'Innovation décerné par Mid'Innov, agence régionale de l'innovation en 2004.
Grand Prix des Métiers d’Art décerné par la Chambre des Métiers de Paris en 2004.
Golden Pony Award décerné par Games Industry à Rome en 2010.
Nominé Trésor Vivant de l'Artisanat décerné par Cigale TV et Cigale Mag en 2015, promotion Saint Jean Bosco.
Grand Prix de Musique Déodat de Sèverac, pour l'ensemble de son oeuvre décerné par l'Académie du Languedoc en 2015.