Biographies

An Austrian composer and conductor from Switzerland born December 6, 1954 in Schaffhausen.

A pianist by training, Beat Furrer studied composition and conducting at the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst in Vienna. Before being appointed composition teacher at the University of Music and the Dramatic Arts in Graz,he founded, in 1985, the ensemble Klangforum Wien, and was its artistic director until 1992. Resolutely turned towards contemporary music, this ensemble has premiered more than 500 works by composers from all over the world.

A French composer born November 29, 1932 in Lourdes who died July 19, 1998.

A pianist by training, Antoine Tisné studied composition with Jean Rivier and Darius Milhaud at the Paris Conservatory. Winning a Second Grand Prix de Rome in 1962, resident at the Casa de Velázquez (1965), he won the Composers’ Prize of the Sacem in 1988. In parallel with his activity as a composer, he has taught composition and orchestration at the Paris-Sorbonne University and has had a long administrative career, first as principal inspector for music at the Ministry of Culture from 1967 to 1992, then as inspector for the municipal conservatories in Paris.

A French composer born July 26, 1922 in Paris who died January 20, 2022.

Born into an artistic and musical environment, Patrice Sciortino entered the Schola Cantorum in 1963, where he studied the piano and harmony and counterpoint. At first organist and music teacher, he subsequently composed to commissions from radio, television, the cinema and the stage. After a course at the GRM in 1967 he studied primitive and exotic music. The initiator of a course for the analysis of contemporary works at the European Conservatory, he became director of the Conservatory of the XIIIth arrondissement of Paris (1979-1992), before being appointed teacher of composition at the Schola Cantorum (1997).

A French composer born February 28, 1967 in Boulogne-Billancourt.

Jean-Baptiste Favory studied composition with Jean-Claude Risset, Julio Estrada, Gérard Pape and Michel Zbar. He has a diploma in electroacoustics from the Conservatory of Boulogne-Billancourt (1996) and in composition from the Ateliers Upic (1999). He has been since 2007 a member of the ensemble CLSI (Circle for the Liberation of Sound and Image) conducted by Paul Méfano. He has composed numerous pieces of musique concrète, most available on CD, as well as music for audiovisual media and the theatre (À la porte, 2007).

A Moroccan composer born January 1st, 1938 in Salé (Morocco). 

After studying music at the Rabat Conservatory in Morocco, Ahmed Essyad settled in Paris in 1962, where he became the pupil and later assistant of Max Deutsch. Finding an interest in ethnomusicology, he concentrated his research on orality and notation (Le Collier des ruses, 1977), as well as on musical time and pulsation (cycle L’eau, 1980-1993; Héloïse et Abélard, 2000). His music is a blend of the oral Berber tradition, serial writing, Gregorian and modal influences.

An English composer born January 31, 1960 in United Kingdom.

Trained as a pianist, George Benjamin studied in Paris with Yvonne Loriod and Olivier Messiaen before following the teaching of Alexander Goehr at King’s College, Cambridge (1978-1982). From 1985 to 1987 he learned electroacoustic techniques at Ircam (Antara, 1987). As well as a composer he is a conductor and has been a composition teacher at the Royal College of Music in London and King’s College. Polymorphous, Benjamin’s output reflects the influences of his earliest masters, as well as of Alban Berg, Henri Dutilleux, György Ligeti and Pierre Boulez.

A French composer born October 30, 1935 in Bordeaux.

A multifacetted percussionnist, improviser and composer, Jean-Pierre Drouet studied successively the trumpet and drumming after an accident deprived him of an intended career as pianist. He studied in turn at the conservatories of Bordeaux and Paris in the percussion class of Félix Passerone, a pupil of René Leibowitz, and the compostion class of André Hodeir. At first he showed a lively interest in jazz, but Drouet’s meeting with the composer Luciano Berio in 1959 marked the start of a trajectory with contemporary music at its heart. As a performer, Jean-Pierre Drouet took part in the premieres of many works of prestigious composers.