Although Gilbert Amy finished his secondary education at the top of his class and with highest distinction in philosophy, he opted for a career in music and entered the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied with Simone Plé-Caussade, Henriette Puig-Roget, Darius Milhaud, and Olivier Messiaen.

A few years later, he met Pierre Boulez, who commissioned him to write Mouvements, to be performed in Darmstadt by the Domaine Musical in 1958. After that, his music was performed in the world’s most revered musical venues, including Donaueschingen, Darmstadt, Venic, Royan, Berlin, and Warsaw…

In 1967, he succeeded Pierre Boulez as the director of the Domaine Musical until it disbanded in 1974.

At the same time, Gilbert Amy pursued a career as a conductor in France and abroad, with an extensive repertoire. Among others, he conducted the Orchestre de Paris, the Orchestre National de France, the Orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Hamburg Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande.

In 1976, Amy founded the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France, serving as its first conductor and artistic director until 1981, conducting nearly one hundred concerts and recordings with them, as well as multiple tours in France and abroad.

His teaching activities include the Acanthes conducting workshop in 1979 with György Ligeti. In 1982, he taught composition and musical analysis at Yale, and served as the director of the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Lyon from 1984 to 2000.

His prolific career as a performer, artistic director, and teacher did not keep Amy from composing continuously starting in the mid-1950s. His catalogue includes instrumental as well as chamber and ensemble music, but voice and text were always a strong focus in his work, starting with Œil de fumée in 1956, all the way to an opera, Le Premier Cercle, which premiered forty years later at the Opéra national de Lyon and was praised by critics as one of the most significant operatic works of its time in France. He also composed extensively for orchestra, with works that explored the organization of sound and space, which fascinated him throughout his career. Orchestrahl (1985-1989) is one of the most ambitious illustrations of this facet of his work.

In 1979, Gilbert Amy was awarded the Grand Prix National de la Musique. In 1983, he won the Grand Prix de la SACEM, in 1986 the Grand Prix musical de la Ville de Paris, in 1987 the Prix du disque de l’Academie Charles Cros, and in 1988 the Prix de la Critique dramatique et musicale for his Missa cum jubilo. In 2004, he was also awarded the Prix Cino del Duca for his entire oeuvre.