A French composer born in 1945 at St Jean D'Angely.
Having started to learn the piano, Jacques Lenot was composing from his youth as an autodidact. In 1966 he followed the classes of György Ligeti in Darmstadt and frequented Karlheinz Stockhausen and Mauricio Kagel. He then studied with Sylvano Bussotti, notably meeting Franco Donatoni who invited him in 1974 to the Accademia Chigiana in Sienna. In 2003 he founded L’Oiseau Prophète, his own publishing company.
Lenot lays claim to being a composer of serial music, yet broadens this system to his own unique sound world. His style, complex and precise, requires a certain instrumental virtuosity. He employs tense intervals, tone-colours that are subdued then violent, metrical and rhythmic polyphonies, and unfolds an entire poetic world imbued with a jerky lyricism and inner drama. Lenot shows a taste for baroque art and steeps himself in the sites and countries he visits, though also with a romantic literary space notably inhabited by Friedrich Hölderlin, Rainer-Maria Rilke and Philippe Jaccottet. Devoting himself exclusively to composition, he has written abundantly for all genres and formations. His works include Diaphaneïs for strings and percussion, first performance by the Orchestre de l’ORTF conducted by Maurice Leroux at the festival of Royan (1966); Beau calme nu for flute, first performance by Pierre-Yves Artaud at the festival of Royan (1973); We approach the sea for piano, first performance by Philippe Gueit at Ircam (1982); J’étais dans ma maison et j’attendais que la pluie vienne, opera first performed by the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande conducted by Daniel Kawka at the Grand Théâtre de Genève in Switzerland (2003); Chiaroscuro for piano and orchestra, first performed by Daniel Wiesner and the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Petr Vronsky at the Rudolfinum of Prague in the Czech Republic (2006); String Quartet n° 6, first performance by the Quatuor Tana in Strasburg at the festival Musica (2008); Isis et Osiris, sound installation for wind septet and electronic environment, first performance by the Ensemble Multilatérale at Ircam (2013); Ce sont des cygnes, là-bas ? for orchestra, first performance by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France conducted by Tito Ceccherini at the festival Présences (2015).
