PIERRE THILLOY
Composer
Cell phone: +33 (0) 608.538.113
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“The experience of listening to Pierre Thilloy’s music”
Pierre Thilloy’s music is tormented or it’s not, as Malraux defined the XXI century in face of the spiritual void. His music catches both the listeners’ guts and psyche. It doesn’t feign formal graciousness. It justifies its own brutal appearance, which is both penetrating and disturbing: it is like a sun which asks to be looked at with covered eyes. It is the blinding glow shining right into your face.
The listeners come out devastated, but conscious of embarking on an intense and deep journey into their own souls. Pierre Thilloy does not narrate the things you see, but the vibrating membrane of the things you feel. He is not a chameleon: he is really immersed into cultures which, however exotic to the eyes of his native country, are no less universal in their essence, under their skin.
He escapes the traditional musicological schemes; he is free to point straight at the evidence, whichever that is.
The real and true author he is, is allowed to be peremptory in his replies, brutal, not dipped in researches and lucubration aimed at hiding any shallowness. Thilloy stirs the conscience of every single listener. The simplicity of the language spoken by his music is not oversimplification, but a sword revealed naked. He is not inspired by the abstract; he carries a deep sense of epics. He is a sculptor who shapes the raw of the soul. Whether or not you associate the title to the listening experience, as listeners you are shocked by the deep and undeletable trace left by the passage of the music, as a wake in our sensorial system. The raw musical material speaks for itself and so does the strong imaginative evocation of its title; that material is more than a programmatic reflection justifying the latter.
One does not come out unscathed from listening to Pierry Thilloy’s work; one comes out transformed. The ostinato, a certain measure of repetition, a development more than a shape, contribute to associate oneself strictly, almost as if lede by the hand of its author, in order to populate his landscapes, together with him. The listener becomes the space of the listening act, whole, a virtual interpreter who participates, like the piece of a huge jigsaw puzzle in which he integrates himself, cohesive part of a larger design, of the gesture of the author himself.
In all arts, one appropriates himself of the works in which we identify fully, without the apprehension of the dogmatic pedestal. One should not fear Pierre Thilloy’s music. We shall thank him for existing!”
Emile Naoumoff – Pianist and composer
Born on September 30, 1970, Pierre Thilloy started studying music rather late, in 1990 in Nancy (composition and orchestration with Jean-Pierre Rivière and writing with Noël Lancien), then he went on to study composition and its techniques with professor Alexander Mullenbach at the Luxembourg Conservatorium and the National Academy of Mozarteum in Salzburg and musical aesthetics in the XX century with Mario di Bonaventura.
Soon, he began his international career with the first order for a large orchestra from Jacques Lacombes, Canadian conductor, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Arsenal – a magnificent concert hall designed by Ricardo Bofilli. On this occasion, his second symphony L’HOMME APOCALYPTIQUE appeared, written for two accordions and over one hundred musicians. Since then, his taste for large symphonic pieces has born. Nowadays,there are eight large-scaled symphonies, about twenty symphonic poems and one oratorio for three orchestras, three choirs and seven soloists.
Finalist in several international competitions (Queen Elizabeth in Brussels, Leonard Bernstein in Jerusalem, Ladislav Kubik in the United States), he also won the National General Musical Contestin 1990, the F.F.E.M. in 1997, and received the Second International Prize “Olivier Messiaen” of the Guardini Foundation in Berlinin 1998. On June 18, 2008, he received the Prize of the Hunting and Nature Foundation for his fanfare LA POLONAISE.
In April 2001, Pierre Thilloy became the only European laureate of the prestigious RockefellerFoundation in New York with his fifth symphony L’ARCHE D’ALLIANCE and the fifth string quartet LAPSIT EXILLIS.
He received the Prize of the National Academy for Sciences, Arts and Humanitiesin Metz for the bulk of his works in 2002, the Silver Medal of the Academic Society for Arts, Sciences and Humanities in Paris for his musical repertoire in April 2005, and the Grand Prix of the Ausonius Academy for his secular oratorio MOZELLA.
He was a musician in residence at the Abbey of La Prée from 1999 to 2002, at the French Embassy in Baku (Azerbaijan) between2003 and 2005 (the experience lived in this period is told in a 52-minute documentary called Pierre Thilloy, la Montagne de Feufor the series Musiques au Coeur by Eve Ruggirei, broadcasted on France 2 and Mezzo channels), in Uzbekistan from 2005 to 2008 and again in Baku since 2008.
Fascinated by all forms of artistic expression, he worked on numerous projects around the dance, modern circus, painting, food, wine, silent films and literature.
For over ten years, his many trips around the world, especially in the Central Asia and the Middle East have enriched his language with different musical elements and have led toseveral cross-cultural collaborations making him a musician of the world.
At the moment, he is carrying on his composer’s work, dealing particularly with his symphonic work, string quartet, music for silent films, and especially opera that has fascinated him literally since he attended the staging of THE TURN OF THE SCREW by Britten in 2003. Since then, Pierre Thilloy has forever devoted himself to such an absolute genre.
After several operas “for children” (AMI ROMÉin Aix-en-Provence, ordered byMichelCamatte, thenLE CHEMIN DES ABEILLESat the Opera inNice, ordered by the Caissedes DepotsConsignations, andOOPS! at theOpéra-Théâtrein Metz), he wrote his first opera HAMLET ou LE JOUR DES MEURTRES based on the libretto by Bernard-Marie Koltès, in March 2011.[“...this JOUR DES MEURTRES is a great experience, sometimes exciting, sometimes clumsy which follows you as a beautiful and poisonous nightmare”.]
Appointed professor of composition, orchestration andmusicfor film at the National Conservatoryof Nancyin September 2006,Pierre Thilloy has been sustained by the Dokhan Foundation since 2007 and by the Catherine Gide Foundation since 2009.
Nearly 200 of his works have already been played and interpreted throughout the world by the most famous conductors and soloists. All his works are subjects of orders from prestigious foundations and institutions.
He is a co-founder of the OVNIgroup and theKORDSproject.
Pierre Thilloy is currently a musician in residence at the French Embassy in India.
They have interpreted his work:
Conductors :
Kanako Abé
Marie-Annick Guillemin
Véronique Carrot
Béatrice Warcollier
Jacques Lacombe
George Pehlivanian
Simon Perčič
Benjamin Pionnier
Arie van Beck
Pieter-Jelle de Boer
Takashi Kondo
Jean-Philippe Navarre
Takashi Kondo
Nicolas Brochot
Alexander Mullenbach
Stephan Weiler
Vincent Monteil
Pierre Deville
Olivier Dejours
Pascal Verrot
Vincent Barthe
John Poole
Gabriel Baltès
Alexandru Lascae
Jean-Sébastien Béraut
Antonino Manuli
Fabrice Kastel
Arlette Steyer
Nigel Short
Dominique Descamps
Miguel Etchegoncelay
Victor Puhl
Jacques Mercier
Joseph Lamarca
Soloits:
Mélanie Clapiès
Tidou Fischer
Olivia Huygues
Zahra Gulieva
Elina Kuperman
Geneviève Laurenceau
Aude Lefèvre
Franck Stadler
Stéphane Rougier
Marcin Markowicz
Mathieu Névéol
Lyonel Schmit
Gérard Poulet
Eric Lacrouts
Eric Crambes
Manuel Solans
Tasso Adamopoulos
Jean Paul Minalli-Bella
Michel Michalakakos
Ericmaria Couturier
François Salques
Yan Levionnois
Henri Demarquette
Etienne Péclard
Jean-Baptiste Toselli
Jérome Lefranc
Dominique de Williencourt
Cédric Leprévost
Nadine Deleury
Muza Rubackyté
Rosella Clini
Catherine Chauffard
Dana Ciocarlie
Gulshan Annagiyeva
Émile Naoumof
Alexander Mullenbach
Olivier Greif
Hugues Leclère
Denis Pascal
Murad Huseynov
Thomas Paule
Julien Le Pape
Guigla Katsarova
Edson Elias
Bruno Fontaine
Mieko Miyazaki
Luca Ferrini
Daria Burlak
Frédéric Mayeur
Oto Vrhovnik
Thomas Bloch
Ales Klancar
Vladimir Kafelnikov
David Guerrier
Éric Aubier
Mauro Maur
Fabrice Millischer
Jacques Mauger
Gregory van der Struick
Alessandro Fossi
Philippe Wendling
Olivier Galmant
Kristjan Tavčar
Jernej Terčon
Cecilia Serra
Richard Rimbert
Philippe Berrod
Jérôme Schmitt
Nina Assimakopoulos
Rajan G. Srikrishnan
Samuel Coles
Wissam Boustany
Gaspar de Hoyos
Didier Malherbe
Pascal Contet
Bertrand Rieske
Félicien Brut
Anthony Millet
Zoran Lupinc
Saïed Shanbehzadeh
Habib Mefthah Boushehri
Stéphane Escoms
Guillaume Flamen
David Laborier
Vincent Guilliou
François Guilliou
Vassilena Serafimova
Isabelle Cornellis
Daniel Ciampolini
Gilles Durot
Bachar Khalifé
Nicolas Armendariz
Matija Tavčar
André Adjiba
Julien Béranger
Greta Komur
Yasko Fuji
Kim Kyung Ran
Irena Yebuah
Isabel Soccoja
Ariana Vafadari
Tara Venditti
Anne-Sophie Domergue
Julie Cherrier
Isabelle Vernet
Elzbietha Szmytka
Martine March
Elisabeth Vidale
Hermine Huguenel
Anthony Mc Glaun
Jacques Calatayud
Patrick Calafato
Alexander Knopp
Jean-Philippe Courtis
Alexander Knopp
François Le Roux
Didier Henry
Jacek Laszczkowski
Pierre Val
Gérard Laurent
Alain Duault
Mickael Lonsdale
Jean Lorrain
Orchestras and ensembles :
Orchestre National de Bordeaux
Orchestre National de Lyon
Orchestre National de Lorraine
Orchestre Symphonique et Lyrique de Nancy
Orchestre Lyrique Avignon-Provence
Orchestre Philharmonique de Nice
Orchestre de Picardie
Orchestre d’Auvergne
Orchestre Sostenuto
Orchestre de Bayonne Côte Basque
Orchestre Symphonique de Mulhouse
Orchestre de l’Aube
Orchestre Imaginaire
Orchestre de chambre Les Déchiffreurs
Orchestre Symphonique de la Garde Républicaine
Ensemble Ultim’A Sonata
Ensemble Stravinsky
Ensemble Siddhârta
Ensemble Moderne de Köln
BBC
Orchestre d’État d’Azerbaïdjan
The Hague Chamber Orchestra
Orchestre de la Radio Télévision Ouzbèke
Orchestre de chambre de Tashkent
Orchestre de l’Opéra de Tirana
Tenebræ Choir
BBC Singer’s
Polifonia
Ensemble Vocal d’Aquitaine
Les Métamorphoses
@vibrato
Petits Chanteurs de Saint André de Colmar
Maîtrise de Garçons de Colmar
Brass Band de Bienne
ONHJ
Pihalni Orkester Komen
The Detroit Chamber Trio
Trio KDM
Collectif OVNI
Quatuor Kocian
Quatuor de Bordeaux
Quatuor National d’Azerbaïdjan
Quatuor Danel
Quatuor Gaudi
Quatuor Stanislas
Quatuor Liber Corax
Quatuor Dionysos
Quatuor TERCEA
Quatuor DAFO
Quatuor ARDEO
Quatuor Joachim
Quatuor Elysée
Quatuor Thymos
Quatuor Carpe Diem
Concert halls and places:
Staatsoper (Berlin)
Philharmonie (Berlin)
Mozarteum (Salzbourg)
BBC (Londre / UK)
Philharmonie (Bakou / Azerbaïdjan)
Théâtre Bebhudov (Bakou / Azerbaïdjan)
Palais du Peuple (Tashkent / Ouzbékistan)
Opéra de Bordeaux
Opéra de Nice
Opéra de Metz
Opéra de Tirana (Albanie)
International Opera Theater of Philadelphia (USA)
Abbaye de La Prée
Arsenal (Metz)
Centre Pompidou (Metz)
Salle Gaveau (Paris)
Théâtre du Trianon (Paris)
Cité de la Musique (Paris)
Grand Amphithéâtre de Carcassonne
Scarab Club (Détroit / USA)
Oratorio del Gonfalone (Rome)
Cathédrale de Sydney (Australie)
Cathédrale de Genève (Suisse)
Cathédrale de Bordeaux
Festivals :
Festival International de Quatuor à Cordes de Bordeaux
ALAM (Metz)
Les Nuits des Musiciens (Paris)
JMF (Luxembourg)
Oratorio del Gonfalone (Rome)
TIP2000 (Utrecht / Pays-Bas)
Tindal Fundation (Amsterdam / Pays Bas)
CHAIN (Enshede / Pays-Bas)
Senzoku Gaquen (Tokyo / Japon)
Tubamania (Sydney / Australie)
International Festival of Symphonic Music (Tashkent / Ouzbékistan)
Festival International de Samarkand (Ouzbékistan)
Académie supérieure de musique de Tashkent (Ouzbékistan)
Tindal Fundation (Amsterdam / Pays Bas)
Académie Bellini (Catania)
Péniche Opéra (Paris)
Nancy Jazz Pulsation (Nancy)
Ciné-Concerts (Bordeaux)
Musicaa (Amiens)
Musique Nouvelle en Liberté
Festival Musique Action (Nancy)
Festival des Forêts,
Chœurs de Lumières (Genève / Suisse)
Festival International du Touquet
Opéra National du Rhin
Antiken Festspiele Trier
Auditorium de Luxembourg
Small World Festival de Toronto (Canada)
Domaine de Malagar (Aquitaine)
Mid’Europe (Schladming / Autriche)
Festival de Nohant
Cinémathèque de Toulouse
Nuits de l’Enclave des Papes
Théâtre de Cesenatico (Italie)
International Opera Theater of Philadelphia (USA)
Etc...