Program and Artist Biography

About the Composer

A French composer born in Le Havre in 1947, Tristan Murail received degrees in classical Arabic and Maghrib Arabic from the National School of Living Oriental Languages, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in economics and a degree from the Paris Institute of Political Studies. He entered Olivier Messiaen’s class at the Paris Conservatory in 1967, and in 1971 received first prize in composition. The same year, he was awarded the Rome Prize and spent two years at the Villa Médicis. During his formative years, he emulated aesthetics concerned with creating comprehensive movement of masses, volumes, or sonic textures. Murail was influenced by electronic music, works by Iannis Xenakis, Giacinto Scelsi and, above all, György Ligeti.

After returning to Paris in 1973, he joined Michaël Lévinas and Roger Tessier in founding the musical collective l'Itinéraire, which would become a laboratory for his research in the domain of instrumental composition, the use of live electronics, and computer-assisted composition. The same year, he composed La Dérive des continents and Les Nuages de Magellan, pieces typical of his early style incorporating an uninterrupted sonic magma without articulation or real evolution. Sables (1974) and Mémoire/Erosion (1975-1976) typify Murail’s later, increasingly refined style.

In 1980, the composers from l'Itinéraire took part in a computer music workshop at IRCAM. This experience had a decisive impact on the evolution of Murail’s music, as he had begun using computers to increase his understanding of acoustical phenomena. In 1982-83, he composed Désintégrations, his first experience with superimposed instrumental and synthesized sounds. With Serendib (1991-1992) and other works from that period (La Dynamique des fluides, La Barque mystique), his music expressed extreme states of subdivision, articulation and unforeseeable development. Between 1991 and 1997, Murail collaborated with IRCAM, teaching composition and participating in the development of Patchwork, a software for computer-assisted composition. He also taught at numerous festivals and institutions, including summer courses at Darmstadt, the Abbaye de Royaumont, and the Centre Acanthes.

Murail now lives in the United States and has been a professor of composition at Columbia University since 1997.