updated 3 April 2023

Sasha J. Blondeau

French composer born 26 May 1986 in Briançon.

Sasha J. Blondeau was born in France in 1986. They studied piano and saxophone at the Conservatoire de Gap, then analysis, music theory, and composition at the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Lyon. In 2007, they entered the Conservatoire de Lyon (CNSMDL), where they studied composition with Denis Lorrain and François Roux. They received their masters in composition in 2012, for which they wrote Soubresauts, which received the 2012 Fondation Francis et Mica Salabert Prize.

At the IRCAM, they worked with MuTant on Antescofo, a program designed to aid with the synchronization of electronics in live performances, studying the new possibilities it implied for composing and electronics. They received their doctorate in musical composition in 2017, studying in a joint Ircam-Sorbonne-CNRS program and working with the IRCAM’s Représentations Musicales team and research director Jean-Louis Giavitto.

Blondeau composes mixed intrumental and electroacoustic music, and is particularly interested in the interactions between instrumental and electroacoustic composing “in the same space of expressivity,” describing their work on compositional space as an attempt “to give a theoretical and musical framework to the organization of matter and its links to temporal and formal questions.” In this way, they seek to “work on ideas of distance, kinship, continuity/discontinuity within musical entities of different scales forming a set of compositional landscapes.”

Blondeau was a resident at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris from July 2013 to June 2015. In 2014, they were selected to participate in the IRCAM’s ManiFest Academy for an Atelier In Vivo on musical theater (Nachleben), as well as in Harvard University’s Summer Composition Institute (État d’exception). They were also a fellow of the Villa Médicis in Rome in 2018-2019 and a resident in 2021-2022. They were awarded the SACEM “Claude Arrieu” Prize in 2018.

They have been commissioned by the Philharmonie de Paris, the SWR Donaueschinger Musiktage, the Wittener Tage Für Neue Kammermusik (WDR), the Ensemble Intercontemporain, Radio France, Ircam, the Festival Musica, the French Ministry of Culture, the Festival Messiaen, the Percussions de Strasbourg, the GMEM and Françoise and Jean-Philippe Billarant.

Their work has been performed by Christophe Desjardins, Donatienne Michel-Dansac, Lionel Peintre, Richard Dubelski, and Séverine Ballon, as well as by ensembles such as the Atelier XX-21, Talea, l’Orchestre de Paris, Ensemble Intercontemporain, Diotima quartet, the ensembles Kwadrofonik, Court-Circuit, Les Percussions de Strasbourg and Insomnio.

In 2022, Sasha J. Blondeau will collaborate with François Chaignaud and Hélène Giannecchini, all three in residence at Royaumont and Villa San Francisco, a project in which Ircam and the Orchestre de Paris are associated. In 2022-2023, the composer was a fellow at Villa Concordia, Germany.


© Ircam-Centre Pompidou, 2018

Sources

Site de Sasha J. Blondeau.

  • Solo (excluding voice)
  • Chamber music
  • Instrumental ensemble music
    • Contre-espace for a large ensemble of twenty-five instruments (2019), 13 mn
    • elec ircam stage Cortèges for a dancer/singer, large orchestra and electronics (2023), 35 mn
  • Concertant music
    • elec Tesla for viola, ensemble and electronics (2014), 19 mn
    • elec ircam Namenlosen for four soloists, ensemble and electronics (2017), 20 mn
  • Vocal music and instrument(s)
    • Soubresauts for soprano, three actresses, ensemble and electronics (2012), 45 mn
    • elec ircam stage Nachleben for soprano, baritone, percussion and electronics (2014), 8 mn 30 s
    • elec Atlas I : In principio for soprano, trumpet, clarinet, percussion and electronics (2019), 19 mn
    • elec They for soprano, two pianos, two percussion and electronics (2020)
  • Electronic music / fixed media / mechanical musical instruments
  • Unspecified instrumentation
    • elec Ponentino multi-channel installation (2019), 8 mn 30 s

Documents

Liens internet

(liens vérifiés en mars 2023).

Bibliographie

  • Sasha J. BLONDEAU, « L’odyssée du contre-espace », entretien par Jérémie Szpirglas, dans Accents, le webmag de l’Ensemble intercontemporain, septembre 2019 (lien vérifié en mai 2023).

Discographie

  • Sasha J. BLONDEAU, Atlas I : In principio, dans « Wittener Tage für Neue Musik 2019 », 2 CD Kultur Forum Witten, 2019.