updated 19 May 2009
© Jean-François Bauret

Denis Cohen

French composer and conductor born 5 July 1952 in Coupvray (Seine et Marne).

Denis Cohen was born in France in 1952. He trained at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP) from 1969 to 1979, earning honors in composition, harmony, counterpoint, and piano accompaniment. He continued his piano studies with Jean Fassina and played percussion for five years. He won the silver medal at the Finale Ligure Piano Competition in Italy in 1977, and was a resident at the Villa Médicis in Rome from 1982 to 1984. Despite this extensive musical training, he considers himself to be a self-taught composer and conductor, the two parallel vocations that have brought him the most renown.

Denis Cohen’s compositions are fairly unique in the world of French contemporary music, notably because he has always rejected the placement of serial and spectral music in opposing camps, and because his music has such distinct Germanic features (particularly in its consciously organic formal conception). Karlheinz Stockhausen and Bernd Alois Zimmermann are notable influences in this regard, as may be heard in his earlier compositions, such as Transmutations, written in 1980.

After a series of instrumental pieces in his early years of composing, Cohen turned to vocal compositions, such as Cantate in 1982 and La Cassure des nuages in 1983. In them, the transparent texture of his earlier works gives way to densely layered compositions, such as in Sprache of 1988. In the early 1990s, after a period of densely written works in the 1980s, compositions such as Doppi versi alla luna for voice, clarinet, and percussion or Il sogno di Dedalo heralded the birth of a new sensibility that might be described as “mediterranean.”

Considering the dangers of connotation inherent in using traditional instruments in the context of modern musical language, Cohen enjoys “subverting” instrumental sounds with electronics; his piece Jeux (1984-1988) reflects his natural interest in the junction of the piano and IRCAM’s 4X synthesizer.

Cohen made his first foray into opera with Ajax-Opéra interrompu (1983-1984), an exploration he made with certain conditions attached, given the long history stretching from Monterverdi to Zimmermann and without giving in to any “turning back to” that the genre naturally implies. The vocal and symphonic cycle that came out of his reflections on the possible relationships between the theatrical and the musical was begun in 1986 and includes purely orchestral pieces, such as Close Islands and Étude pour le Poème. Sprache, written for four singers bearing texts in five languages, a narrator, and an orchestra, is an “imaginary painting” where the paradigms of the opera’s characters are displayed and spatialized, brought to the stage as images. This trilogy was followed by a pentalogy in which the orchestra journeys to the pit, and each opera in this gestating cycle “examines” a national paradigm linked to each of the five languages in Sprache. A new opera, l’Homme trouvé (1992-1995), was added to this cycle, with a libretto co-written with Jean-Claude Carrière.

His more recent works include Erinnerung, (a commission from the IRCAM-Centre Pompidou), which premiered in June 2009, performed by the Quatuor Arditti during the Festival Agora Paris.

In parallel, Denis Cohen is an orchestra conductor, a practice which nourishes his constant quest to establish links between composing, formal design, and the sounding result of musical pieces. He served as conductor of the Ensemble intercontemporain in 1980, and as assistant conductor in 1981-1982. After this, he was a regularly invited conductor for ensembles, orchestras, and choirs in Europe, Australia, and Israel (including for the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, Ensemble Modern in Frankfurt, Orchestre du Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris, Ensemble l’Itinéraire, Ars Nova, Alternance, 2e2m, Asko d’Amsterdam, and Elision in Melbourne).

Since 1999, Denis Cohen has taught orchestration at the Conservatoire national supérieur de Paris, after teaching master classes in conducting there in 1994 and 1995. He was also a professor at the Institut d’études politiques de Paris from 1999 to 2001. He writes as a critic and published a book of interviews with the musicologist Michel Rigoni in 2008, and his writing reflects his position in the world of contemporary composing and his resolutely modernist stance.

His works are published by Nodus.

  • Silver medal at the Finale Ligure Piano Competition in Italy in 1977
  • Fellowship from the French Ministry of Culture in 1979 (for Trames)
  • Research fellowship from the French Ministry of Culture to study inharmonicity at the IRCAM in 1980
  • Fellowship from the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs for research in the Stanford University computer music department in 1982
  • Villa Médicis fellowship in 1982
  • Prix de Rome in 1982 for a two-year residency at the Villa Médicis
  • SACEM Albert Wolff prize for Cantate in 1983
  • SACEM Hervé Dugardin prize for lifetime achievement in 1988

© Ircam-Centre Pompidou, 2009

Sources

  • Site du compositeur (voir Ressources documentaires)

Bibliographie

  • Laurent BAYLE (dir. de pub.), Les Cahiers de l’Ircam n° 4 – Denis Cohen, Paris, éditions Ircam-Centre Pompidou, coll. « Compositeurs d’Aujourd’hui », 1993.
  • Denis COHEN, « Réponse », dans Conséquences n° 7/8 – Automne 1985-Printemps 1986, Saisons musicales, Paris, éditions Association Conséquences, 1985.
  • Denis COHEN, « Réduire la marge de non-écriture », dans la revue Entretemps n° 3, Paris, éditions Entretemps, 1987.
  • Denis COHEN, « Réponse », dans Libération, septembre 1987.
  • Denis COHEN, « Pour ou contre » ou « L’art techno-science », dans Libération, 16 avril 1990.
  • Denis COHEN, « Ircam – l’institution face à la création », dans la revue Art Press, juillet/août 1990.
  • Denis COHEN, « Ulysse et les sirènes », dans L’Idée musicale, éditions Presses universitaires de Vincennes, Coll. « La Philosophie hors de soi », 1993.
  • Denis COHEN, « Le présent décomposé – entretien avec Michel Rigoni », Paris, éditions L’Harmattan, Coll. « Univers musical », 2008 [préface de Pierre-Albert Castanet].

Discographie

  • Denis COHEN, Transmutations, Jeux, Il Sogno di Dedalo, dans « Denis Cohen », Florent Boffard : piano, Frédéric Stochl : contrebasse, Ensemble intercontemporain, direction : Denis Cohen, 1 Cd Adès/Ircam/EIC, Coll. « Compositeurs d’aujourd’hui », 1994, n° Musidisc 203652.
  • Denis COHEN, Les neuf cercles d’Alighieri, Flexus, Pyramoïdes, Il Sogno di Dedalo, dans « Denis Cohen – Les neuf cercles d’Alighieri », Françoise Pollet : soprano, Jean-Luc Menet : flûte, Pierre-Henri Xuereb : alto, Orchestre symphonique de la Radio de Francfort, Ensemble Alternance, direction : Lucas Vis, Diego Masson, 1 Cd BMG Ricordi, 1998.
  • Denis COHEN, À Dante, dans « Répertoires polychromes 2 », avec également des œuvres de Michel Pascal, György Kurtág, Denis Levaillant, Kaija Saariaho…), Ensemble Accroche note, 1 Cd MFA-Radio France, 1999.
  • Denis COHEN, Il sogno di Dedalo, dans « Hier und Jetzt – Musik der Gegenwart Zeitgenössische Komponisten » (avec également des œuvres de Marc-André Dalbavie, Frédéric Durieux, Ivan Fedele, Jonathan Harvey, Philippe Hurel, Michael Jarrell…), Rié Hamada, Sharon Cooper, Sarah Leonard : sopranos, Mary King : mezzo-soprano, Gérard Buquet : tuba, Christophe Desjardins : violon, Alain Damiens : clarinette basse, Sophie Cherrier : flûte, Hideki Nagano, Dimitri Vassilakis : pianos, de l’Ensemble intercontemporain, direction : Peter Eötvös, Pierre Boulez, David Robertson, Stefan Asbury, Denis Cohen, 1 Cd Universal-Accord-Ircam, Coll. « Compositeurs d’aujourd’hui », 2001.
comme chef d’orchestre
  • Denis COHEN, Transmutations, Jeux, Il Sogno di Dedalo, dans « Denis Cohen », Florent Boffard : piano, Frédéric Stochl : contrebasse, Ensemble intercontemporain, direction Denis Cohen, 1 Cd MFA/Ircam/Eic/Musidisc, Coll. « Compositeurs d’aujourd’hui », 1994, n° Musidisc 203652.
  • Denis COHEN, Il sogno di Dedalo, dans « Hier und Jetzt – Musik der Gegenwart Zeitgenössische Komponisten » (avec également des œuvres de Marc-André Dalbavie, Frédéric Durieux, Ivan Fedele, Jonathan Harvey, Philippe Hurel, Michael Jarrell…), Rié Hamada, Sharon Cooper, Sarah Leonard : sopranos, Mary King : mezzo-soprano, Gérard Buquet : tuba, Christophe Desjardins : violon, Alain Damiens : clarinette basse, Sophie Cherrier : flûte, Hideki Nagano, Dimitri Vassilakis : pianos (Ensemble intercontemporain), dir. Peter Eötvös, Pierre Boulez, David Robertson, Stefan Asbury, Denis Cohen, 1 Cd Universal-Accord-Ircam, Coll. « Compositeurs d’aujourd’hui », 2001.
  •  Michael SMETANIN, Spin Ø, Bellevue II, Skinless Kiss of Angels, Hot Block, dans « Skinless of Angels », Ensemble Elision, dir. Denis Cohen, 1 Cd ABC Classics, 1995.
  • Yoshihisa TAIRA, « Polyèdre », Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, direction : Denis Cohen, 1 Cd MFA.
  • Frédérick MARTIN, Concerto pour clarinette, Thierry LANCINO, Symphonie d’instruments à vents et d’électronique, dans « Villa Medicis’ 90 », Ensemble l’Itinéraire, direction : Denis Cohen, 1 Cd Adès, Paris, 1992.
  • Alistair MAC DONALD, « A Trace of Infinity », Ensemble Elision, dir. Denis Cohen, 1 Cd Onemore Records.
  • Alessandro MELCHIORRE, Fables, Ctonios, Halos, Terra Incognita, dans « Terra Incognita », Stefano Scodanibbio : contrebasse, Irvine Arditti : violon, Nieuw Ensemble, Ensemble Elision, direction Denis Cohen, Ed Spanjaard, 1 Cd Ricordi, 1994.

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