Denis Dufour (born 9 October 1953) is a composer of

art music Art music (alternatively called classical music, cultivated music, serious music, and canonic music) is music considered to be of high phonoaesthetic value. It typically implies advanced structural and theoretical considerationsJacques Siron, ...

Biography

Born in

Lyon Lyon,, ; Occitan: ''Lion'', hist. ''Lionés'' also spelled in English as Lyons, is the third-largest city and second-largest metropolitan area of France. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhône and Saône, to the northwest of t ...

, after studying the

classics Classics or classical studies is the study of classical antiquity. In the Western world, classics traditionally refers to the study of Classical Greek and Roman literature and their related original languages, Ancient Greek and Latin. Classics ...

at the CRR in Lyons and the

Paris Conservatoire 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 ...

(particularly with

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 innov ...

and

Ivo Malec Ivo Malec (30 March 1925, in Zagreb – 14 August 2019, in Paris) was a Croatian-born French composer, music educator and conductor. One of the earliest Yugoslav composers to obtain high international regard, his works have been performed by s ...

), Dufour is recognized as a

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

in the field of

instrumental An instrumental is a recording normally without any vocals, although it might include some inarticulate vocals, such as shouted backup vocals in a big band setting. Through semantic widening, a broader sense of the word song may refer to instru ...

as well as

electronic Electronic may refer to: *Electronics, the science of how to control electric energy in semiconductor * ''Electronics'' (magazine), a defunct American trade journal *Electronic storage, the storage of data using an electronic device *Electronic co ...

creation Creation may refer to: Religion *''Creatio ex nihilo'', the concept that matter was created by God out of nothing * Creation myth, a religious story of the origin of the world and how people first came to inhabit it * Creationism, the belief tha ...

for concert with more than a 180 works to his credit. As one of the pioneers of the 'morphological' and expressive approach to sonic writing, his works employ a wide spectrum of parameters in all sonic dimensions. Following Pierre Schaeffer and

Pierre Henry Henry at his home (January 2008) Pierre Georges Albert François Henry (; 9 December 1927 – 5 July 2017) was a French composer and pioneer of musique concrète. Biography Henry was born in Paris, France, and began experimenting at the age of ...

, he contributed to the emergence of a genre that decisively connects artists and musicians. "The exploration of new structures of sound, the fluidity of a 'Baroque' style of phrasing, the mobility of his figures, and his love of the human voice and of certain dramatic narrative effects have fostered the emergence of a new kind of theatrical sound in his work, over and beyond his strictly musical discourse''. Despite his large compositional output, from the late 1970s, he has been a

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. whe ...

(at the

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

Boulogne-Billancourt Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious Communes of France, commune in the Parisian area, located from its Kilometre zero, centre. It is a Subprefectures in ...

(PSPBB) higher arts education centre, the Regional Conservatories of Paris,

Perpignan Perpignan (, , ; ca, Perpinyà ; es, Perpiñán ; it, Perpignano ) is the prefecture of the Pyrénées-Orientales department in southern France, in the heart of the plain of Roussillon, at the foot of the Pyrenees a few kilometres from the ...

, Lyons),

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

er (including

Groupe de Recherches Musicales A group is a military unit or a military formation that is most often associated with military aviation. Air and aviation groups The terms group and wing differ significantly from one country to another, as well as between different branches ...

until 2000), lecturer, and a host for several courses, workshops and

master class A master class is a Class (education), class given to students of a particular Academic discipline, discipline by an expert of that discipline—usually music, but also science, painting, drama, games, or on any other occasion where skills are b ...

es in France and abroad (particularly in Japan and Italy). A tireless leader and advocate, with Jonathan Prager, of an approach to interpretation and

spatialization Spatialization (or spatialisation) is the spatial forms that social activities and material things, phenomena or processes take on in geography, sociology, urban planning and cultural studies. Generally the term refers to an overall sense of soc ...

on an

acousmonium The Acousmonium is the sound diffusion system designed in 1974 by Francois Bayle and used originally by the Groupe de Recherches Musicales at the Maison de Radio France. It consists of 80 loudspeakers of differing size and shape, and was designed ...

(system of sound spatialization – a loudspeaker orchestra) with sensitivity and accuracy as opposed to the rigidity of pre programmed

multiphonics A multiphonic is an extended technique on a monophonic musical instrument (one that generally produces only one note at a time) in which several notes are produced at once. This includes wind, reed, and brass instruments, as well as the human voice ...

. Founder and initiator of the TM + ensemble, his work ''Ourlé du lac à la première goutte de pluie'' (''Pli de Perversion 2'') performed at the ICMC in 1984 – is the first to use Syter, one of the first real-time

digital processing Digital data, in information theory and information systems, is information represented as a string of discrete symbols each of which can take on one of only a finite number of values from some alphabet, such as letters or digits. An example is ...

devices. "Dufour was instrumental in identifying the need for space to check the parameters quickly and accurately. It was this observation that led to the development of the interpolations screen, which can memorise the status of all the system's parameters (a 'snapshot', as we would now call it), and enables the user to move very quickly from one configuration to another by jumps or interpolations (gradual evolution)." He also contributed significantly to the realization of the Acousmographe, a software for

graphical representation Graphic communication as the name suggests is communication using graphic elements. These elements include symbols such as glyphs and icons, images such as drawings and photographs, and can include the passive contributions of substrate, colour ...

of sound phenomena, produced by

Institut national de l'audiovisuel The (abbrev. INA), () is a repository of all French radio and television audiovisual archives. Additionally it provides free access to archives of countries such as Afghanistan and Cambodia. It has its headquarters in Bry-sur-Marne. Since 200 ...

. An organizer and

artistic director An artistic director is the executive of an arts organization, particularly in a theatre or dance company, who handles the organization's artistic direction. They are generally a producer and director, but not in the sense of a mogul, since the ...

of several events dedicated to contemporary creation (the series Acore in Lyons, Syntax in Perpignan, Musiques à Réaction in Paris, Futura Festival in

Drôme Drôme (; Occitan: ''Droma''; Arpitan: ''Drôma'') is the southernmost department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of Southeastern France. Named after the river Drôme, it had a population of 516,762 as of 2019.

), he also founded several structures, collectives and instrumental formations that continue to irrigate the musical life in France and abroad (Motus, Futura, Syntax, TM+, Les Temps modernes...). Through the exchange of experiences between artists of various fixed medium disciplines (musicians, visual artists, photographers...) he welcomed a trans-disciplinary public seen at the Futura Festival in Drôme every summer since 1993. Since the early 2000s (decade), Dufour actively participated in the encouragement and development of acousmatic art in Japan. Through Motus in 1996, he initiated two of the most important acousmoniums performing regularly in France and in Europe. Several annual interventions, particularly the invitation to the

Palais de Tokyo The Palais de Tokyo (''Tokyo Palace'') is a building dedicated to modern and contemporary art, located at 13 avenue du Président-Wilson, facing the Trocadéro, in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The eastern wing of the building belongs to ...

have contributed to the reputation of Motus in the world of

contemporary art Contemporary art is the art of today, produced in the second half of the 20th century or in the 21st century. Contemporary artists work in a globally influenced, culturally diverse, and technologically advancing world. Their art is a dynamic com ...

. Recognizing the need to broaden the scope of a type of creation made in a

studio A studio is an artist or worker's workroom. This can be for the purpose of acting, architecture, painting, pottery (ceramics), sculpture, origami, woodworking, scrapbooking, photography, graphic design, filmmaking, animation, industrial design ...

, fixed on a medium and delivered for listening on loudspeakers, he combined the various genres into what he calls acousmatic art, which offers an open definition (translated into several languages) and which is beyond mere musical terrain. In his hands, acousmatic art came to being a fertile musical genre, which, consciously or not, influenced a number of musicians and artists. Very aware of promoting cross-practice, he is involved in multiple partnerships in the visual arts (Galerie Lydie Rekow in Crest, National Superior Institute of Fine Arts in Perpignan, initial three years residence in the centre of contemporary art at the Domaine de Kerguéhennec, collaboration with visual artist Jaume Xifra and with

Richard Serra Richard Serra (born November 2, 1938) is an American artist known for his large-scale sculptures made for site-specific landscape, urban, and architectural settings. Serra's sculptures are notable for their material quality and exploration o ...

in Monumenta 2008. A composer of a variety of instrumental, vocal or acousmatic works he has always been deeply involved in the transgression of genres, plunging his experiences in the field of dance, video, mixed works (combining instrument and fixed audio media), the musical theatre, radio art – Hörspiel, installations and sound environments. A large number of his works use texts for which he collaborated with Michel Vincent, Jean-Christophe Thomas, Dominique Dubreuil, Marc Jaffeux and especially Thomas Brando with whom he has worked very closely on several compositions. His instrumental, acousmatic and mixed media works are published by Maison Ona.

Works

Discography

References

External links

*
Contemporary music portal

''Who's Who in France''

''Larousse'' encyclopedia

Society of authors, composers and editors of music

Maison ONA
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dufour, Denis 1953 births Living people French male classical composers Electroacoustic music composers 20th-century classical composers 21st-century classical composers French opera composers Male opera composers Experimental composers Microtonal musicians Composers for piano Composers for pipe organ Composers for violin Composers for cello Composers for trombone French experimental musicians French electronic musicians French sound artists Musique concrète 20th-century French composers 21st-century French composers 20th-century French male musicians 21st-century French male musicians