Hugues Dufourt was born in Lyon in 1943. He completed his musical training at the Geneva Conservatory, studying piano with Louis Hiltbrand (1961-1968) and composition and electroacoustics with Jacques Guyonnet (1965-1970). He received his agrégation in philosophy in 1967 and began teaching at the University of Lyon, then entered the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in 1973. He was a member of the Ensemble L’Itinéraire, and became one of its directors 1976, a position he held until 1981. In 1977, he founded the Collectif de Recherche Instrumentale et de Synthèse Sonore (Instrumental and Sound Synthesis Research Collective) with Alain Bancquart and Tristan Murail. From 1982 to 1998 he directed the Recherche Musicale center for information and documentation of the CNRS, which became a joint research center under the aegis of the CNRS, the École Normale Supérieure, and the IRCAM. From 1989 to 1999, he founded and directed the Doctoral Program in Music and Musicology of the 20^th Century at the École des Hautes études en Sciences sociales (EHESS), with support from the École Normale Supérieure and the IRCAM.

Dufourt has received many commissions from prestigious contemporary music ensembles and major orchestras in France and Italy. He was awarded the SACEM’s Grand Prix for Chamber Music in 1975, the Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros in 1980, the Koussevitzky Music Foundation Award in 1985, the Prix du Jury of the Musique en Cinéma Festival in 1987, the SACEM Composers Prize in 1994, and the Prix du Président de la République for lifetime achievement, awarded by the Académie Charles Cros in 2000.