Stéphane de Gérando (born June 23, 1965) is a French composer, conductor, multimedia artist, and researcher.

Biography

Stéphane de Gérando was born in L'Haÿ-les-Roses in France into a family with historical ties to France and Hungary. He studied classical music from the age of 7 in France (conservatories of Saint-Brieuc, Rennes, Paris). At the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de paris, he was the pupil of Alain Bancquart in composition, Michel Philippot in analysis, Gérard Grisey in orchestration, Guy Reibel and Laurent Cuniot in electroacoustics, Tristan Murail in computer music and Philippe Manoury (IRCAM). In the third cycle, he follows the master classes of Pierre Boulez, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Franco Donatoni, Emmanuel Nunes, Henri Dutilleux. In the field of research, his research dissertations are directed by Hugues Dufourt (DEA), Ivanka Stoïanova and Horacio Vaggione (PhD, Contingence et déterminisme procedural appliqués à la synthèse sonore informatique et l'écriture musicale (ISBN 2-284-00761-9), Pierre Abert Castanet (in French "Habitation à diriger les recherches", La création musicale en question, 2 volumes, 800 pages, published under the name of L'oeuvre musicale contemporaine à l'épreuve du concept, ISBN 978-2-296-56283-7). Gérando was pedagogical director of a higher education centre (CEFEDEM Aquitaine became PESMD Bordeaux Nouvelle-Aquitaine) which prepares future territorial officials for the Diplôme d'Etat in France (2000–2005), president of the International Institute for Innovation, Artistic Creation and Research since 2006. He was also director of the training centre for intervening musicians (CFMI 2009–2011), arts department of the UFR of the University of Strasbourg. Since 1998, he has taught composition, real-time images and algorithmic sound creation (Paris).

Music

His catalogue includes more than 90 works, from the instrument alone to the orchestra with or without electronics such as Puisque il est ainsi for symphony orchestra and magnetic tape, first performed by the Paris Conservatory Orchestra under the direction of Mark Foster at the Maison de la radio in Paris (1990); En toi avec lui et en lui, for four orchestral groups around the audience, creation at Radio-France's Studio 104 festival Présences 92, Du sens au sens pour flûte, created by Pierre-Yves Artaud at the Darmstadt International Festival (1994); Ce que tout cadavre devrait savoir for five instrumentalists, narrotor and voice, premiered by the Ensemble 2e2m at the Centre Pompidou in Paris (1996); Intumescence for instrumental ensemble and band, premiered by the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France at the Presences festival (1996); Katanga commissioned by Radio-France pour les cuivres et percussions de l'Orchestre Philharmonique (2004) work recorded under the direction of the composer, 6ex1pen7sion4, commission d'État pour ensemble et électronique en temps réel, first performed by l'Ensemble 2e2m in Paris (2006), or another more recent example, Lycromorphie, a violin, cello and piano trio created at Radio-France in Paris. Gerando won the Stipendienpreis of Ferienkurse für Internationale Neue Musik Darmstadt 1994 (Germany), the Prize of the Association of Alumni and Students of the Conservatoires Nationaux Supérieurs de Musique et d'Art Dramatique de Paris (1991), the SACEM Academic Prize (1995), and was a laureate of the Sasakawa Foundation in 1993 and 1994.

Polyartistic and technological creations

Since 2007, Gerando has mainly devoted himself to the Labyrinth of Time, a multi-support work at the same time polyartistic and technological, museum installations, digital art, video mapping, interactive visual and sound installations, sculptures with 3D projection, instrumental and vocal creations with real-time electronics, poetry-dance-theatre writing. Among the last pieces belonging to the Labyrinth of Time are: The circle of the sphere for actor and video (2012); The strange passage of the senses for theatre, contemporary dance, percussions, video, virtual paintings, cello, horn, real-time electronics and electroacoustics (2015); Completion for instrumental ensemble with variable number, with body, text and musical score, real-time electronics, video and computer (2019); Vertical Memory electroacoustic cycle with the voices of Viriginia Guidi, Nicholas Isherwood and Emmanuel Meyer (2022). With the support of France, one of the last monumental international screenings of the Labyrinth is on the Azadi Tower of Tehran, on July 19, 2018.

Research

Books, articles, dictionary, collaborations with scientists such as Franck Jedrzejewski, Athanase Papadopoulos, Christophe Mourougane (mathematicians), Jérôme Pétri (astrophysicist), Louis Bigo (computer scientist), Gille Baroin (engineering doctor), Gérando's research deals with theoretical and technological issues (world premieres – modulo 24 homometric sets, series all intervals in an octave and zigzag, series all intervals nested in a micro-intervallic series, model of spectral representation in four dimensions etc.) and on the other hand, historical, aesthetic, educational and institutional issues related to the notion of creation. Gérando speaks publicly on other topics, such as ethical issues as on the occasion of Alain Bancquart's eightieth birthday at the Centre de la musique contemporaine (CDMC) in Paris on November 6, 2014, speech published on the front page of the newspaper Médiapart on November 8, 2014, or other example in 2016, in the context of relations between France and Morocco on «the art of entrepreneurship» at the Institut Français d'Agadir.

Catalog of works (extracts)

CD and DVD

Books

Articles

Conferences (extracts)