A French composer born November 1, 1974 in Paris.
Trained at the École Nationale de Musique in Montreuil, Olivier Penard studied composition with Philippe Capdenat and Guy Reibel before studying musicology at the Sorbonne. The founder of the ensemble Opus Neuf specialising in the twentieth-century repertory, he also directed the female vocal ensemble Zéphyre, with which he performed baroque music and music-hall. Olivier Penard has composed many vocal works. Blending sound and word, he takes inspiration, with the aim of simplicity, formal clarity et accessibility, from poetry - Louise Labé, Poe, Jorge Luis Borges, Paul Eluard, Michelangelo - and from sacred texts. Childhood, time, love, faith, death and renunciation are his favoured themes. His technical choices are dictated rather by the necessities of emotion and dramaturgy than by a desire for novelty. Inspired by Charles Koechlin, Maurice Ravel, Igor Stravinsky, Béla Bartòk, Arthur Honegger and Henri Dutilleux, Olivier Penard has developed music that is expressive, lyrical, neo-tonal, owing to diatonic harmonies coloured by modality, dense counterpoint and energetic rhythms. His works include La chèvre de M. Seguin (1999), Ombra del morir (2000), Suite Hollywoodienne (2006), Der Steppenwolf (2006), Exaltabo te, Domine : Psaume 30 (2010).