Hughes de Courson is a French

musician A musician is a person who composes, conducts, or performs music. According to the United States Employment Service, "musician" is a general term used to designate one who follows music as a profession. Musicians include songwriters who wri ...

and

arranger In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orches ...

The Malicorne years

Hughes de Courson is best known for being on all of the albums by Malicorne. He played

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

, bass,

crumhorn The crumhorn is a double reed instrument of the woodwind family, most commonly used during the Renaissance period. In modern times, particularly since the 1960s, there has been a revival of interest in early music, and crumhorns are being play ...

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Exc ...

recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

positive organ A positive organ (also positiv organ, positif organ, portable organ, chair organ, or simply positive, positiv, positif, or chair) (from the Latin verb ''ponere'', "to place") is a small, usually one-manual, pipe organ that is built to be more o ...

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

elka ELKA, Elka, or Elkas may refer to: * Aspioti-ELKA, Greek publishing and printing firm, active 1873–1997 * An Italian synthesizer manufacturer, now defunct; brand now owned by Generalmusic, used for their amplifier products ** Elka Synthex, a synt ...

synthesiser A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis and f ...

glockenspiel The glockenspiel ( or , : bells and : set) or bells is a percussion instrument consisting of pitched aluminum or steel bars arranged in a keyboard layout. This makes the glockenspiel a type of metallophone, similar to the vibraphone. The glo ...

and

Hammond organ The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond and John M. Hanert and first manufactured in 1935. Multiple models have been produced, most of which use sliding drawbars to vary sounds. Until 1975, Hammond organs generated s ...

. He was producer on some of the albums. His most original track was probably "Vive La Lune" on '' Balançoire En Feu'' (1981), which is largely instrumental. It typifies the colourful, bizarre sounds that he later made as a soloist. He also wrote some songs with his school mate, famous writer

Patrick Modiano Jean Patrick Modiano (; born 30 July 1945), generally known as Patrick Modiano, is a French novelist and recipient of the 2014 Nobel Prize in Literature. He is a noted writer of autofiction, the blend of autobiography and historical fiction. I ...

Classical medieval techno

Hughes' albums are all large-scale works. He is an arranger rather than a soloist. On many he combines electronic effects with medieval or

baroque instruments Musical instruments used in Baroque music were partly used already before, partly are still in use today, but with no technology. The movement to perform music in a historically informed way, trying to recreate the sound of the period, led to the ...

. '' Mozart in Egypt'' takes works by

Mozart Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (27 January 17565 December 1791), baptised as Joannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical period (music), Classical period. Despite his short life, his ra ...

and emphasises the oriental elements in them. The 25th symphony is played with a much-enlarged orchestra. '' O'Stravaganza - Vivaldi in Ireland'' combines traditional

Irish music Irish music is music that has been created in various genres on the island of Ireland. The indigenous music of the island is termed Irish traditional music. It has remained vibrant through the 20th and into the 21st century, despite globalis ...

with re-arranged

Vivaldi Antonio Lucio Vivaldi (4 March 1678 – 28 July 1741) was an Italian composer, virtuoso violinist and impresario of Baroque music. Regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, Vivaldi's influence during his lifetime was widespread a ...

works. "Lambarena, Bach to Africa" mixes African traditional music from Gabon to Johann Sebastian Bach music. Songs of Innocence combines songs by children of the world with clever classical arrangements. Unfortunately his recordings are rarely available in the English-speaking world.

Discography

*''Charlemagne'' (1993) *''Lambarena - Bach to Africa'' (1995) *''13 Croquis de Jeunes Filles As'' (1996) *''Mozart in Egypt'' (1997) *''Songs of Innocence'' (1999) *''O'Stravaganza - Vivaldi in Ireland'' (2001) *''Lux Obscura: Un Projet Electro-Medieval'' (2003) *''Mozart in Egypt 2'' (2005) He has also produced for almost 100 albums

In the media

Hughes' song El Vuelo, appeared in 2009, in a series of TV ads for the Canadian airline,

Air Canada Air Canada is the flag carrier and the largest airline of Canada by the size and passengers carried. Air Canada maintains its headquarters in the borough of Saint-Laurent, Montreal, Quebec. The airline, founded in 1937, provides scheduled and ...

, promoting new features of their new airplanes. He had help recording this piece from Plovdiv's Children's Choir, of Bulgaria. Live music Hughes de Courson wrote 22 music pieces for contemporary ballets, performed by Philippe Decoufle, Karine Saporta, The San Francisco Ballet, and many more. He also performed "Mozart in Egypt" and "O'Stravaganza" in various festivals, and in important events like the Jeddah Islamic Economic Forum in 2008. He is now living in Kuala Lumpur Malaysia, and studies Asian music. He performed an Asian version of Ravel's Bolero in Ho Chi Mihn City in 2010. He writes music for events, mainly in Qatar (Gulf Cup opening show, Asian cup opening show in 2011, Museum of Islamic Arts opening, Mercedes class S presentation in Shanghai, other events in Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, etc...). Hughes de Courson is willing to make a cross over album based on Malaysian music. He teaches, gives lectures, and is hoping to record his latest piece: "Magic Lutes", although the record industry crisis makes it more difficult nowadays.

References

French musicians Living people Year of birth missing (living people) {{France-musician-stub