Frédéric Durieux was born in Paris in 1959. After graduating with highest honors in music theory from the Conservatoire de Région de Grenoble in 1980, he continued his musical education at the Conservatoire de Paris, studying analysis and composition with Betsy Jolas and Ivo Malec. He received highest honors in analysis in 1984 and highest honors in composition in 1986. He then continued studying analysis with Alain Poirier and composition with André Boucourechliev, as well as participating in masterclasses with Brian Ferneyhough, Franco Donatoni, Gérard Grisey, Hugues Dufourt, György Ligeti, and Tristan Murail.

Durieux was first invited to work with the IRCAM in its Recherche Musicale team in 1985-1986, and then was a composer-in-residence there several times. From 1987 to 1989, he held a residency at the Villa Medicis. He began teachig analysis in 1991 and composition in 2001 at the Conservatoire de Paris (CNSMDP). He also gives lectures and masterclasses in composition and analysis in France and abroad.

Durieux is adamant about the crucial role of writing in his work: highly structured language, firm articulation, refined color. The poetry of Yves Bonnefoy and Emmanuel Hocquard are of particular significance to him and his scores for the two poets’ texts feature tight relationships between poetry and music.

Durieux is particularly interested in the history and the evolution of musical writing, and has written several texts on this topic, including L’ancien et le nouveau et Héritage / proposition (published in InHarmoniques n°4, Mémoire et création, Paris, Ircam - Centre Pompidou / Christian Bourgois Éditeur, 1988). From one piece to another, illustrating this reflection focused on transition and reminiscence, all of his compositions deploy a single musical idea, the progressive constitution of a cohesive “corpus.” Seuil déployé, which premiered in 1989, enounces a musical proposal that is then developed across several other pieces: the Marges cycle Là (1989) and its second version, Là, au-delà (1990-1992). There is a traceable genealogy from one work to another; they are interlinked by a memory of harmonic cells that are repeated, deployed, and transformed, in this way revealing a perceptible harmonic system whose presence, like a watermark, builds a network of memories in the listener’s mind.

Frédéric Durieux’s catalogue counts over forty works. The quartet Here, not There, a commission from the IRCAM and from Le Printemps des Arts de Monaco, premiered in 2007, with an expanded version that premiered two years later, in 2009. He composed a vocal cycle for soprano Donatienne Michel-Dansac; a piece for vocal ensemble and percussions titled Sammlung premiered in January 2011; he has also written for solo piano, and a concerto for cello for Radio France. He also participates in radio broadcasts on France Musique.

Durieux is Officier des Arts et des Lettres, and received the 2005 Composition Prize from the Foundation Prince Pierre de Monaco for his orchestral work Traverses 1, 2 et 3.