Contributors

French-Swiss composer and musicologist Yves Balmer (b. 1978) pursues musical creation and scholarly research as inseparable pursuits. Winner of the 2023 Kaija Saariaho International Composition Prize for Winds Choreography and the 2025 Académie des Beaux-Arts Composition Prize, he has forged a distinctive path that brings together creative imagination and intellectual rigor.

A trained pianist, organist, and saxophonist, he earned six first prizes at the Paris Conservatory in analysis, music theory, orchestration, and music history. He holds the agrégation in music and a doctorate from the University of Lille, and has served as Professor of Musical Analysis at the Paris Conservatory since 2008 and President of the Société française de musicologie since 2024. A leading authority on Olivier Messiaen, his co-authored study Le modèle et l’invention won the Prix France Musique des Muses in 2018. He serves as general editor of the complete edition of Messiaen’s unpublished works for Durand-Universal.

His music draws on natural phenomena—wind, water, light—as models for sonic transformation. His compositions, marked by their exploration of transitional sound states and sculpted resonance, engage deeply with contemporary poetry. His debut recording Poétiques de l’instant (Alpha Classics, 2022) received the Diapason d’Or and Diamant d’Opéra Magazine awards.