Biographies

A British composer born December 19, 1967 in London.

A violinist by training, Rebecca Saunders studied composition with Wolfgang Rihm at the Musikhochschule of Karlsruhe and at Edinburgh University.

She explores tone-colours, breath sounds, breathing, and studies the relationship of instrumentalists with sounds in space. She frequently makes use of spatialisation processes (Chroma for ensemble and sound objets, 2003; Stirrings Still I for five players, 2006; Stasis for 16 soloists, first performed by the ensemble MusikFabrik, 2011). Silence is another fundamental element in her concept of music: she makes it audible, composes with and around it.

A French composer born January 24, 1942 in Le Mans.

A French composer born May 20, 1939 in Lille.

Trained at Versailles Conservatory, Jean Schwarz played percussion with various professional jazz groups before joining the GRM (Groupe de Recherches Musicales) from 1969 to 1999. He was also a CNRS engineer in the department of ethnomusicology in the Musée de l’Homme from 1965 to 1999, and teacher at the Gennevilliers Conservatory (1979-1997), where he set up the electroacoustic class. He founded and also directed Celia Records, a publishing company for producing his own music.

An Italian composer born in 1956 in Bursto Arsizio (Italy).

A Chinese composer born August 18, 1957 in Changsha (China).

Initiated into traditional Chinese stringed instruments, Tan Dun plays the viol and writes arrangements for Peking Opera. He studied at Peking Conservatory then in the USA, at Columbia University, where he discovered the minimalist and post-minimalist composers. 

A Chinese composer born July 31, 1971.

A pianist by training, Leilei Tian studied composition, obtaining a master’s degree at the Central Peking Conservatory (1988-1995). She completed her training with an advanced diploma (2001) at the Göteborg Conservatory, and by following summer classes at such great institutions as Darmstadt, Acanthes, Royaumont, as well as the composition and music IT course at Ircam (2002-2003).

A Canadian composer, pianist, ondist and teacher born September 6, 1932 in Arvida (Canada), who died July 27, 2017 in Montréal.

A pianist, Gilles Tremblay entered the Montreal Conservatory where he studied composition with Claude Champagne. He continued his apprenticeship at the École Normale de Musique and the Paris Conservatory, notably with Olivier Messiaen. He studied the piano, the ondes Martenot, attended the summer classes of Darmstadt, where he met Karlheinz Stockhausen, Pierre Boulez and Henri Pousseur, and initiated himself into electroacoustic techniques in a course with Pierre Schaeffer at the ORTF. In the course of a study journey in the Far East he absorbed the melodies of Java, Bali and the percussion of China and India.

An Argentine composer born January 2, 1943 in Cordoba (Argentina).

A Belgian composer born January 6, 1946 in Charleroi (Belgium).

Annette Vande Gorne studied music at the Royal Conservatories of Mons and Brussels, as well as the teachings of the composer Jean Absil. She discovered acousmatic music at a course in France and immediately realised, through the works of François Bayle and Pierre Henry, the potential within this art. She completed her training in musicology at the University of Brussels and in electroacoustic composition at the Paris Conservatory with Guy Reibel and Pierre Schaeffer.

A French composer born March 7, 1967 in Antony.

A pianist by training, Frédéric Verrières studied at the Brussels Conservatory then the Paris Conservatory in the classes of Marc-André Dalbavie, Gérard Grisey, Michael Levinas, François Théberge and Gabriel Yared. He completed his apprenticeship with a course of computer music at Ircam.