Pascal Dusapin was born in France in 1955. He studied visual arts, science, art, and aesthetics at the Université de Paris-Sorbonne. Between 1974 and 1978, he participated in the seminars of Iannis Xenakis. From 1981 to 1983, he was a resident at the Villa Medicis in Rome.

From the beginning of his career as a composer he received numerous awards and honors including the SACEM’s Prix Symphonique in 1994, the Grand Prix National de Musique from the French Ministry of Culture in 1995, and the Grand Prix of the City of Paris in 1998. He won a “Victoire de la Musique” in 1998 for an album recorded with the Orchestre national de Lyon, and was named Composer of the Year at the same awards in 2002. In 2005, he was awarded the Cino del Duca Prize by the Académie des Beaux-arts. He is a Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres and was elected to the Bayerische Akademie der Schönen Künste in July 2006.

In 2006-2007 he was appointed to the Création artistique chair of the Collège de France. In 2007, he won the Dan David Prize with Zubin Metha for contemporary music (the Dan David Prize is an international award for scientific and artistic achievement) In 2014, he was named Chevalier de l’Ordre national de la Légion d’honneur.

He has composed numerous pieces for soloists, chamber ensembles, large orchestras, and operas. The autumn of 2002 saw the premieres of his A quia, a concerto for piano and orchestra (commissioned by the Bonn Beethoven Fest) and the complete cycle of his Sept Ă©tudes for piano.

The Filarmonica della Scala in Milan commissioned his Perelà Suite for orchestra — taken from his opera, Perelà, uomo di fumo — which premiered in 2005, directed by James Conlon.

He is the author of seven quartets, including Quatuor V, a commission from the Muziekgebouw aan’t Ij, the Berliner Philharmoniker, and the Cité de la Musique that premiered in 2005 at the Concertgebouw d’Amsterdam in a performance by the Arditti Quartet; Quatuor VI, Hinterland, hapax, a quatuor concertant with orchestra that premiered in Lucerne in April 2010; and Quatuor VII “Open Time”, which also premiered in a performance by the Arditti Quartet in 2010.

For orchestra, he has composed a cycle of seven “solos” culminating in Uncut (2008-2009); more recently, he composed a new cycle in the form of a tryptich that opens with Morning in Long Island, Concert n° 1 for Large Orchestra with three concertante brass parts, which premiered in 2011 in a performance by the Orchestre de Radio France, conducted by Myung-Whun Chung.

His catalogue also counts many operas, including Roméo & Juliette, which premiered in 1989 at the Opéra de Montpellier; Medeamaterial, which premiered in 1992 at the Opéra de la Monnaie in Brussels; To be sung which premiered in 1994 at the Théâtre des Amandiers in Nanterre. These were followed by a commission from the Opéra national de Paris, which resulted in Perelà, uomo di fumo, which premiered at the Opéra de la Bastille in 2003. Faustus, The Last Night (2003-2004), commissioned by the Berlin Staatsoper Unter den Linden, received the prize for best premiere of 2007 at the Victoires de la Musique and a Prix Choc from the magazine Monde de la musique for the DVD recording. Perelà, uomo di fumo and Faustus, The Last Night were both directed by Peter Mussbach. The Festival of Aix en Provence commissioned Passion, which premiered in 2008, with a libretto based on the legend of Orpheus written by the composer himself. In 2011, at the Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord, O’Mensch, a cycle of lieder based on Nietzsche’s poetry, directed by the composer in a performance by his faithful collaborators Georg Nigl and Vanessa Wagner. In Octobre 2014, for the Donaueschingen Festival, he designed a visual and sound installation titled “Mille Plateaux,” which then traveled to venues including Lieu Unique in Nantes in 2015. In 2015, Dusapin’s opera Penthesilea, after Heinrich von Kleist, premiered at the Théâtre de La Monnaie in Brussels.

In 2019, Pascal Dusapin presented Lullaby Experience, his first work in collaboration with the IRCAM, at ManiFeste. The President of the French Republic, Emmanuel Macron, commissioned him to write a work, premiered 11 November 2020, for the ceremony of Maurice Genevoix’s induction into the Panthéon. In February 2021, he was headline composer at the Radio France festival Présences.

Pascal Dusapin is published by Les Éditions Salabert (Universal Music Publishing France) and primarily recorded on the Naïve/Classic label.

© Ircam-Centre Pompidou, 2019

sources

Éditions Salabert.



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