A French composer born November 14, 1966 in Monte Carlo.
A pianist and percussionist by training, Yann Maresz discovered jazz and the guitar as an autodidact. He then studied jazz at the Berklee College of Music in Boston (1984-1986) and the guitar with John McLaughlin, becoming the latter’s principal orchestrator and arranger. He turned to composition in 1986, at the Juilliard School in New York, and completed his apprenticeship with David Diamond in 1992. In Paris, in 1993, he embarked on a composition and computer music course at Ircam and worked with Tristan Murail. A finalist for the Gaudeamus Prize of Amsterdam in 1994, he won the Hervé Dugardin Prize for Metallics in 1995 before taking up a residency at the Villa Medici (1995-1997). A winner of the Prix Sacem for young composers in 2006, Yan Maresz regularly organises masterclasses and lectures in France, Europe, the USA and Canada (McGill University). He is also a teacher at the Paris Conservatory of orchestration and new technologies applied to composition. His works reflect research into orchestration and the use of computerised material, electronics acting as a deforming mirror in order to manipulate references from the collective memory. Among his works are Parmi les étoiles fixes... (1991), Mosaïques (1992), Séphire (1997), Festin (1999), Sul segno (2004) and Étude d’impacts (2006).
