Miquette Giraudy

French keyboard player and vocalist

Miquette Giraudy is a French keyboard player and vocalist, best known for her work in Gong, and with her partner Steve Hillage. She and Hillage form the core of the ambient band System 7. She has also worked as an actress, film editor and writer, in each role using different stage names.

Miquette Giraudy was born on 9 February 1953, in Nice, France.

In the late 1960s Giraudy, under the name Monique Giraudy, became assistant to French film maker Jackie Raynal. She has script and assistant editing credits on the 1969 Barbet Schroeder film More. In front of the camera she appeared, under the name Marsiale Giraudy, in Jean Pierre Prévost's 1971 film Jupiter, and, as Monique Giraudy, played the role of Monique in Schroeder's 1972 film La Vallée. Raynal herself appeared in Martial Raysse's 1972 film, Le grand départ and Monique Giraudy gets a full editing credit.

Already Hillage's girlfriend, Giraudy joined him in Gong as a vocalist in March 1974, replacing Diane Stewart Bond, who had replaced Gilli Smyth the previous year. Smyth returned to Gong for part of 1974, with Giraudy coming back to the band in July. Hillage and Giraudy left the band together at the end of 1975. Giraudy appears on the 1974 album You as "Bambaloni Yoni" (Wee voices and Chourousings (sic)), on one track of the studio album Shamal (1975) and four tracks of Gong Live Etc. (1977). She is also on the archival release, Live at Sherwood Forest 75 (2005). Giraudy, together with Steve Hillage, reunited with Gong for various shows from 2006 onwards and the same line up released a new album, 2032, in 2009.

Giraudy appears on all of Hillage's solo albums. She played percussion, keyboards, sang and co wrote material on Fish Rising (1975), L (1976), Motivation Radio and several subsequent albums. Although released under Hillage's name, Rainbow Dome Musick (1979), a seminal early ambient album, consisted of two sides, side A written and largely performed by Giraudy and side B written and largely performed by Hillage.

More recently, Hillage and Giraudy formed System 7, working with a number of collaborators.