© Photo : Bruno Mace

Born in 1955 in Domfront (France), Philippe Hurel accomplished his initial musical studies in Toulouse. From 1981, he was pupil at the Paris Conservatoire in the classes of Ivo Malec (1st prize for composition) and Betsy Jolas (1st prize for analysis). From 1983 to 1985, he has followed Tristan Murail’s classes on the relationship between composition, acoustics and information technology. From 1985 to 1986 and from 1989 to 1990, he worked at the IRCAM in the field of “Musical Research”. From 1986 to 1988, ha was resident at the Villa Medicis in Rome.

In 1995, he received the Siemens Foundation prize in Munich for his Six miniatures en trompe-l’œil, a work commissioned by the Ensemble Intercontemporain.

Since 1997, he has been teaching composing by computer to students at the IRCAM. In addition to his activities as a composer, since 1990 he has been artistic director of the Ensemble Court-Circuit, which he founded with Pierre-André Valade.

His works have been performed by numerous ensembles and orchestras (Ensemble Intercontemporain, London Sinfonietta, Avanti, Itinéraire, 2e2m, Musique Oblique, Erwartung, the Ex Nuovo Ensemble of Venice, the IGNM of Basle, soloists of the RAI, Oslo Sinfonietta, the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne of Montréal, the Ensemble des 20. Jahrhunderts of Vienna, Court-Circuit, the Ensemble Musique Nouvelle of Bordeaux, Nieuw Ensemble of Amsterdam, Tactus of Milan, Tokyo Sinfonietta, the National Chamber Orchestra of Toulouse, Percussions de Strasbourg, Musicatreize, the Helsinki Radio Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, the Melbourne Orchestra, the Stockholm Royal Philharmonic, the Santa Cecilia Radio Orchestra, the Radio France Philharmonic Orchestra, the Orchestre National d’Ile-de-France, the Poitou-Charentes Orchestra, the Lorraine Philharmonia, etc.), working under such famous conductors as Pierre Boulez, Esa Pekka Salonen, Kent Nagano, David Robertson, Ed Spanjaard, Peter Eötvös, Markus Stenz, Arturo Tamayo, Antony Pay, Lorraine Vaillancourt and young conductors such as Pierre-André Valade, Pascal Rophé and Renato Rivolta.

Philippe hurel belongs to the generation of composers who have developed the principles of so-called “spectral” music, begun by Gérard Grisey and Tristan Murail at the end of the seventies. Conforming to the characteristics of this aesthetic trend, Philippe Hurel’s music, strongly based on timbre and showing concern for listener comprehension - involves processes which allow it to pass progressively from one given state of sound to another. But Philippe Hurel, equally interested in counterpoint, has managed to reconcile this principle of constant transition with the more classical style of variation, to such an extent that since Pour l’image, all his pieces involve the return - within the framework of changing musical progressions - of “musical situations” which have already been heard. This principle of double perception multiplying levels of listening characterizes the composer’s taste for ambiguity. So most of his works offer sound anamorphoses set between threads that fuse together a collection of instrumental lines, and polyphonies which allow melodies and instrumental timbre to reaffirm their individuality.

Greatly influenced by work carried out in psychoacoustics, these paradoxal passages place Philippe Hurel among those composers who have best restructured melodic and rhythmic functions over the last few years.
All the melodic lines he writes are conceived according to the recursivity principle, which he has built up since 1986, and lead to polyphonies able to carry off particularly successful transitions between line and texture. On a harmonic level, Philippe Hurel constructs untempered sound aggregates, which he manages to link together with ever-increasing audacity, since he considers the exploration of micro-intervals to be one of the major questions in music today.

While he was at first satisfied with organizing fluxes made up of different periodic rhythms, the composer is today attempting to organize complex rhythmic structures where each voice is affected by a different process (non-linear deceleration or acceleration, tempo modulation, etc.). Since Miniatures, he has also reintroduced genuine rhythmic patterns which are heavily - and deliberately - influenced by jazz.

Philippe Hurel’s music, while appearing to be based on a rigorous approach, also aims at achieving great heterogeneity of style.

Guy Lelong

… à mesure, for ensemble
Ensemble Court-Circuit – Pierre-André Valade, conductor
CD sous le label Æon AECD 0105.
Ensemble Eighth Blackbird
CD Cedille Records CDR 90000 133

Diamants imaginaires, diamant lunaire, for ensemble and electronics
Ensemble Instrumental – Ed Spanjaard, conductor
CD “Villa Medicis 88” SCD 8804 Salabert-Trajectoires MFA (distribution : Adda AD184).

Eolia, for flute
Flute : Pierre-André Valade.
Enregistrement CD ADDA 581075.

Fragment de lune, for ensemble and electronics
Ensemble Musique Oblique – Direction : Philippe Hurel.
CD Musidisc – Una Corda Accord 201272.

Leçons de choses, for ensemble and electronics
Ensemble InterContemporain – Ed Spanjaard, conductor
CD collection Compositeurs d’aujourd’hui / IRCAM / EIC / ADES / Fondation Crédit Lyonnais AD 750.

Opcit, for clarinette
Clarinette : Alain Damiens.
CD dans la collection Compositeurs d’aujourd’hui, IRCAM / EIC / ADES / Fondation Crédit Lyonnais AD 750.

Opcit, pour saxophone
Saxophone : Marie-Bernadette Charrier.
Enregistrement CD Octandre OC 931.

Pour l’image, pour 14 instruments
Ed Spanjaard, conductor
CD “Villa Medicis 88” SCD 8804 Salabert-Trajectoires MFA (distribution : Adda AD184).

Pour l’image, for 14 instruments
Ensemble InterContemporain – Ed Spanjaard, conductor
CD collection Compositeurs d’aujourd’hui, IRCAM / EIC / ADES / Fondation Crédit Lyonnais AD 750.

Pour Luigi, for 5 instruments
Ensemble Court-Circuit – Pierre-André Valade, conductor
CD dans la collection Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 1999.
CD sous le label Æon AECD 0105.

Six miniatures en trompe-l’œil, for 14 instruments
Ensemble InterContemporain – Ed Spanjaard, conductor
CD collection Compositeurs d’aujourd’hui, IRCAM / EIC / ADES / Fondation Crédit Lyonnais AD 750.