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> Marc-André Dalbavie's biography - Works - Discography & bibliography

Photo : Alix Laveau
Over the past ten years, Marc-André Dalbavie has risen to prominence as a leading voice among the new generation of French composers. Born in 1961 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Dalbavie had his first music lessons at the age of six. By the time he was twenty, he was studying at the Paris Conservatory of Music where he later graduated in several disciplines and won several major prizes. In 1984 he attended Franco Donatoni’s class in Siena, and in 1985 joined the research department at IRCAM, where he learnt the basics of digital synthesis and computer-assisted composition. In 1987, he studied conducting with Pierre Boulez. In the early 1990s, he moved to Berlin at the invitation of the German Academy Austauschdienst (DAAD exchange programme) and in 1994 he was awarded the Rome Prize.

In 1986, he conducted the Paris première of his first major piece: Diadèmes (a commission of the French government), at Centre Pompidou. Since then, his music has been performed all over the world. In 1988, Pierre Boulez conducted Diadèmes at the Brooklyn Music Academy, N.Y. More recently, the piece has been played by the London Sinfonietta at Queen Elizabeth Hall, later at the Los Angeles Philharmonie, at the Helsinki Festival under the direction of Esa-Pekka Salonen, in Moscow, London, Berlin and Tokyo among others.

In 1994 Pierre Boulez conducts Seuils at the Salzburg Festival. In 1995 Offertoires, for men’s choir and orchestra is performed by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. In 1996 Eiichi Chijiiwa, violin, and the Orchestre National de France premiere Concerto pour violon in Donaueschingen (Germany).

In 1997 Marc-André Dalbavie is appointed orchestration professor at the Paris Conservatory of Music. That same year, he is awarded the Berlin Philharmonic Salzburger Osterfestspiele Prize. His opera Correspondances and Non-lieu for women’s choir and instrumental ensemble, are premiered respectively in Mulhouse (France) and Stuttgart (Germany).`

1998, December: USA Today votes Marc-André Dalbavie “Best Young Composer of the Year”. The Cleveland Orchestra appoints him ‘Daniel Lewis Fellow’ and composer-in-residence for the next two years. He is commissioned several pieces, one of which will be later conducted by Pierre Boulez during the 2000/2001 concert season of the Chicago Symphony.

May 1999: premiere of his concerto for orchestra, The Dream of the Unified Space, by the Minnesota orchestra, Eiji Oue conducting. He also composed for clarinetist Sabine Meyer, Antiphonie, a concerto for clarinet, basset horn and orchestra, which is premiered by the Rheinischer Philharmonie Staatsorchester (Germany). In 2000 he is composer in residence with the Minneapolis Orchestra. M-A Dalbavie conducts the Summer Festival premiere of Sextine Cyclus, with soprano Joanna Mongiardo. 2001 in Paris: premiere of Mobiles, for choir and instrumental ensemble, with Ensemble InterContemporain and Accentus chamber choir. In residence with Orchestre de Paris for four seasons. French premiere of Concertate il suono.

2002: New York premiere (at the Carnegie Hall) of Color, commissioned and performed by Orchestre de Paris, under the direction of Christoph Eschenbach. Dalbavie works on several projects commissioned by major institutions and orchestras: Cleveland Orchestra, Chicago, the ‘Proms’, Berlin Philharmonie, Montreal and Zurich Tonhalle, NHK of Tokyo, Carnegie Hall of New York, among others.

Jan 1st 2004: M-A Dalbavie is awarded the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres distinction by the French Ministry of Culture.

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As early as 1982, M-A Dalbavie, along with several other composers of his generation, started exploring the potential of spectral music, most specifically the redefinition of timbre and the concept of process. He has enriched these compositional techniques with polyphony and rhythm, combined with principles of recurrence, and worked on heterogeneity through the means of electronics, making use of all applications of computer music and acoustics.
While timbre and color marked his work in the 1980s (Miroirs transparents, Diadèmes...), the 1990s are remarkable for his innovative use of space, place and context. Seuils is one of the first landmarks of this period, with electronic sound sources placed all around the audience and a text referring to the space in which it is used. The piece also marked the beginning of the composer’s collaboration with author Guy Lelong, continued with Non-lieu and Mobiles and the musical event Correspondances, in collaboration with artist and stage-director Patrice Hamel. The use of baroque instruments links Concertino to 17th century composer Matthew Locke’s Curtain Tune. Offertoire for men’s choir and symphony orchestra suggests virtual spaces simulated by the choir-writing. Concerto pour violon launched a series of pieces based on the spatialization of the orchestra. In Non-lieu, for example, the stage is totally empty; the four women’s choirs as well as the instrumental ensemble are placed selectively throughout the hall. The Dream of the Unified Space, Antiphonie and Concertate il Suono, composed respectively for the Minneapolis Orchestra, the Rheinpfalz Orchestra, and the Cleveland Orchestra, all develop the concept of the movement of sound in space. And Mobiles, for choir and orchestra, a site-specific composition for the Cité de la Musique in Paris, starts with the confused noise of conversations - seemingly coming from the audience - rising above the sound of the orchestra tuning up.

During his Orchestre de Paris residence, Dalbavie, like other composers of his generation, turned again to symphonic writing, with the avowed aim of opening new perspectives and building up a repertoire which brings orchestral writing resolutely into modernity. What better proof of the composer’s successful achievements than Color, Ciaccona, and more recently, The Rocks under the Water, composed for the Cleveland Orchestra to celebrate a building by architect Frank O. Gehry.