Daniel Paul Charles was a French musician,

musicologist Musicology (from Greek μουσική ''mousikē'' 'music' and -λογια ''-logia'', 'domain of study') is the scholarly analysis and research-based study of music. Musicology departments traditionally belong to the humanities, although some m ...

and philosopher. He was born on 27 November 1935 in Oran (

Algeria ) , image_map = Algeria (centered orthographic projection).svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Algiers , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , relig ...

) and died on 21 August 2008 in Antibes (

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

Biography

He was a student of Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatory of Music (First Prize, 1956), he received the aggregation in philosophy in 1959 and a PhD under the direction of Mikel Dufrenne in 1977. After leading (late 1968) the Commission charged with establishing the status of professorship of music at the French Ministry of Education, he founded and lead for twenty years (1969–1989) the Department of Music of

University of Paris VIII Paris 8 University Vincennes-Saint-Denis (french: Université Paris 8 Vincennes-Saint-Denis) is a public university in Paris, France. Once part of the historic University of Paris, it is now an autonomous public institution. It is one of the th ...

(Vincennes, and St. Denis). He was also responsible, from 1970 to 1980, for the teaching of general aesthetics at the University of Paris IV (Sorbonne). He decided to end his career by teaching philosophy at the

University of Nice Sophia-Antipolis A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

(1989–1999). When he graduated from the

Paris Conservatory of Music The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

in 1956, he participated in the GRM under the leadership of

Pierre Schaeffer Pierre Henri Marie Schaeffer (English pronunciation: , ; 14 August 1910 – 19 August 1995) was a French composer, writer, broadcaster, engineer, musicologist, acoustician and founder of Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète (GRMC). His inno ...

, and proposed to set into electronic music Stéphane Mallarmé's " Coup de dés" in Darmstadt, a project which caught the attention of

Karlheinz Stockhausen Karlheinz Stockhausen (; 22 August 1928 – 5 December 2007) was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th-century classical music, 20th and early 21st-century ...

. But his lack of enthusiasm toward the "solfège des bruits" of Schaeffer led him to focus instead on John Cage, whom he met in 1958. He contributed then to present Cage's music and philosophy in France: Pour les oiseaux (co-signed with Cage), published first in French (Paris, Belfond, 1976) became a classic book. It was later published in English: For the Birds. Daniel Charles has been invited by many universities to lecture (usually across the Atlantic, but also including Japan and the Philippines), and has published many articles and several books, five of which have been translated into German, and two into Japanese.

Publications

Main Publications

* ''Pour les Oiseaux'' (Entretiens avec John Cage), Paris, Pierre Belfond, 1976 / L'Herne, 2002. translated in English, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. * ''Le Temps de la voix'', Paris, J.-P. Delarge, 1978 / Hermann, 2011. * ''Gloses sur Cage'', Paris, U.G.E., Coll. 10/18, 1978 / Desclée de Brouwer, 2002. * ''John Cage oder Musik ist los'', Berlin, Merve Verlag, 1984. * ''Poetik der Gleichzeitigkeit'', Bern, Benteli Verlag, 1987. * ''Zeitspielräume'', Berlin, Merve Verlag, 1989. * ''Musketaquid, Musik und Transzendentalismus'', Berlin, Merve, 1994. * ''Musiques nomades'', Paris, Kimé, 1998. * ''La fiction de la postmodernité selon l'esprit de la musique'', Paris, P.U.F., 2001.

Direction of magazines

6 special issues of ''Revue d'Esthétique'' (from 1968 to 1998), among them: "John Cage" Number 13-14-15 (1989) (Toulouse, Privat / Paris, J.-M. Place).

Articles

More than 200 articles published in several magazines (''Revue musicale, Analyse musicale, VH 101, Traverses, Corps écrit, Exercices de la patience, Le Temps de la réflexion, Etc. Montréal, Parachute, Discourse, The Musical Quarterly, The World and I, Alpha-beta, Il Verri, Synteesi, Musik-Konzept''e, etc.), in collective books, and several encyclopedias, prefaces, LPs and CDs booklets, etc.

Translations (from English)

* Abraham A. Moles, ''Experimental Music'' ("Les Musiques expérimentales", Zürich, Cercle d'Art, 1966) * Alfred North Whitehead, ''Process and Reality'' ("Procès et réalité", Paris, Gallimard, 1996 - in collaboration with C.R.H.I., CNRS and

). * John Cage, ''Je n'ai jamais écouté aucun son sans l'aimer: le seul problème avec les sons, c'est la musique'' (La Souterraine, Ed. Pierre Courtaud, Coll. La Main courante, 1994).

External links

official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Charles, Daniel People from Oran 1935 births 2008 deaths 20th-century French musicologists 20th-century French philosophers French male non-fiction writers 20th-century French musicians Conservatoire de Paris alumni 20th-century French male writers