Biography
» Philippe Hurel, was born in 1955. French composer of mostly orchestral and chamber works that have been performed throughout Europe and elsewhere. Philippe Hurel studied musicology at the Université de Toulouse from 1974-79 and composition with Betsy Jolas and Ivo Malec at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris from 1980-83. He also had private studies in musical computer science with Tristan Murail in Paris in 1983. His honors include the Pensionnaire à la Villa Médicis à Rome (1986-88), the Förderpreis der Siemens-Stiftung in Munich 1995, for Six miniatures en trompe l'œil, the Prix des Compositeurs from SACEM (2002), and the Prix de la Meilleure Création de l'Année from SACEM 2003, for Aura. Mr. Hurel is also active in other positions. He worked as a music researcher at IRCAM in 1985-86 and 1988-89. He taught composition at IRCAM from 1997-2001. He also served as composer-in-residence to both the Arsenal de Metz and the Philharmonie de Lorraine from 2000-02. With Pierre André Valade he founded the new music ensemble Court-circuit in 1990 and has since served as its artistic director. Since 2013 he teaches composition at the Conservatoire national supˇrieur de musique et de danse de Lyon.
His music has been performed by numerous orchestras and ensembles and by conductors such as by Pierre Boulez, David Robertson, Ludovic Morlot, Tito Ceccherini, Jonathan Nott, Esa Pekka Salonen, Kent Nagano, Pierre-André Valade, François Xavier Roth, Christian Eggen, Lorraine Vaillancourt, Reinbert de Leeuw, Bernard Kontarsky…
After his opera Les pigeons d’argile (libretto by Tanguy Viel) premiered at the Capitole de Toulouse, his cycle Traits for violin and cello was premiered the same year in Paris by Alexandra Greffin-Klein et Alexis Descharmes. In 2015 his orchestral cycle Tour à tour was premiered at Radio France/Festival Manifeste/Ircam by the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio-France conducted by Jean Deroyer. Pas à pas, commissioned by Ernst von Siemens music Foundation has been premiered the same year at the Biennale di Venezia by Ensemble Recherche.
In march 2017 Arditti Quartet premiered Entre les lignes (2016-17) at the Wittener Tage für Neue Kammermusik in Germany and in october 2018, Diotima Quartet premiered D'autre part (2017) at the Théâtre d’Orléans. Les Trois études pour Atlanta (2017), for flute and percussion was premiered in october 2017 in Atlanta. The concerto for clarinet and orchestra, Quelques traces dans l'air (2017-18) was performed in world premiere in june 2018 by Jérôme Comte, clarinet, and Johnannes Stockhammer conducting the Philharmonisches Orchester des Staatstheaters Cottbus (commission of Cootbus orchester, Orchestre Régional de Normandie and Buffet Crampon). In december 2018, Les Percussions de Strasbourg gave the Premiere of Ritual Trio for three percussionnists (2018). He is now composing a string quartet with electronics for Tana and Ircam.
Editions Billaudot publishes his music written between 1981-96 and Éditions Lemoine publishes his music written since 1997.
