Philippe Manoury is regarded as one of the most important French composers, in addition to being a researcher and forerunner in the field of live electronics. Despite an in-depth training as a pianist and composer – he was taught by Max Deutsch (a student of Schoenberg's), Gérard Condé, Michel Philippot, and Ivan Malec, among others – he considers himself to be self-taught. “The composition must be born from an inner longing, and requires no preconditions.” Accordingly, he began his first compositional experiments on his own in parallel to his first lessons in music, and, at the age of 19, his works were already being performed at major festivals for new music. His breakthrough culminated with the premiere of his piano piece Cryptophonos in 1974, interpreted by Claude Helffer.
Following two years of teaching at Brazilian universities, his compositional interest in mathematical models brought Philippe Manoury to the Paris Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM). He worked there from 1981 together with the mathematician Miller Puckette on MAX-MSP, a programming language for interactive live electronics. Between 1987 and 1991, he composed Sonus ex machina, a cycle focusing on the real-time interaction between acoustic instruments and computer-generated sounds – a topic that continues to influence his artistic work and theoretical texts.
Alongside pieces for large orchestras such as Sound and Fury, the violin concerto Synapse (2009), and Echo-Daimónon for piano, electronics, and orchestra (2012), recent years have also seen the premieres of Philippe Manoury’s string quartets (Stringendo and Tensio, both 2010; Melencolia, 2013; Fragmenti, 2016) and instrumental works with electronics (Partita I for viola, 2007; Partita II for violin, 2012; Le temps, mode d’emploi for two pianos, 2014). The moment of interaction characterises his approach – not only in smaller works or compositions featuring electronics, but also with large orchestras: he turns them into a sound laboratory where new interactive possibilities are tested, expanding music theatre as a form.
This increasingly includes the spatial arrangement of musicians in the concert hall, for example in his work In situ, awarded the Orchestral Prize in Donaueschingen in 2013. Inspired by François-Xavier Roth, who conducted the premiere, Philippe Manoury extended the composition into the Köln Trilogie, a large-scale spatial triptych for the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne. After Ring (2016) and a repeat performance of In situ (2017), the trilogy was completed with LabOratorium for two singers, two actors, vocal ensemble, choir, orchestra and electronics, staged by Nicolas Stemann and premiered in May 2019. The work, which is also an expression of the explicitly political commitment to humanity, folds texts by Ingeborg Bachmann, Hannah Arendt, and Georg Trakl into current events and was performed to wide acclaim in Cologne as well as at the Hamburg Elbphilharmonie and Paris Philharmonic. The composer had previously collaborated with director Nicolas Stemann on the music theatre project Kein Licht, based on Elfriede Jelinek’s text of the same name, which premiered at the RuhrTriennale 2017 with subsequent performances in Strasbourg, Paris, Zagreb, and Luxembourg.
Despite the pandemic, a number of new works were also performed in the past two seasons. At the George Enescu Festival 2019, for example, the GrauSchumacher Piano Duo and the Moldova Philharmonic Orchestra Iasi under Brad Lubman gave the Romanian premiere of Zones de turbulences for two pianos and orchestra. This was followed by the French premiere of the flute concerto Saccades, which Philippe Manoury had written for Emmanuel Pahud and the Gürzenich Orchestra during his residency as "Composer for Cologne" and which the flutist has now interpreted with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under Fabien Gabel. The 20/21 season began with the world premiere of a fanfare for brass for the Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne. As part of a focus on Philippe Manoury at the Casa da Música, two concerts were realised with the Remix Ensemble under Peter Rundel; the Passacaille pour Tokyo (piano: Nicolas Hodges) and the B-Partita (violin: Ashot Sargsyan) were performed. This was followed by the world premieres of the Suite Kein Licht at the Philharmonie Luxembourg, written for the Lucilin Ensemble and the mezzo-soprano Christina Daletska, and the concerto for piano and ensemble Mouvements, interpreted by Ancuza Aprodu and the Ensemble Orchestral Contemporain under Bruno Mantovani as part of the Festival Messiaen.
In September 2021, Daniel Barenboim launched Das wohlpräparierte Klavier at the season opening of the Boulez Saal in Berlin. The work for piano and electronics was created in collaboration with the sound designer Gilbert Nouno, who also supervises the live electronics. The world premiere of Argumenta for two percussionists follows in late October at the Offbeat Festival in Copenhagen. In 2022, Philippe Manoury celebrates his 70th birthday, which is celebrated with numerous concerts. Among other events, the Paris Percussion Group will perform a new work for twelve percussionists at the Auditorium de Radio France in May. In addition, the orchestral works États d'alerte and Ring will be heard with the Orchestre National de Radio France under Cristian Măcelaru and the Orchestre de Paris under Lin Liao respectively. A project with the SWR Symphony Orchestra and Teodor Currentzis is also planned for September 2022.
Philippe Manoury has held various teaching and artistic positions, including at Ensemble intercontemporain (1983-1987), Conservatoire de Lyon (1987-1997), Orchestre de Paris (1995-2001), Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (1998-2000), and the Scène nationale d’Orléans (2001-2003). He is professor emeritus of the University of California San Diego where he taught composition from 2004 to 2012. In 2013, he returned to his native France where he was named Professor of Composition at the Académie Supérieure de la Haute École des Arts du Rhin in Strasbourg. His own academy for young composers took place from 2015 to 2018 as part of the Musica Festival in Strasbourg. Following an invitation from the Collège de France, in 2017 he was also a guest lecturer at the “Chaire Annuelle de Création Artistique.”
Philippe Manoury has received numerous awards for his work. In 2014, he was named Officier des Arts et des Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. Philippe Manoury is a member of the honorary committee of the French-German Fund for Contemporary Music/Impuls Neue Musik. In summer 2015, he was elected as a member of the Berlin Akademie der Künste.
Philippe Manoury’s works are published by Universal/Editions Durand. A collection of texts by and about the composer can be found on his blog at www.philippemanoury.com.
2021/2022 season
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