Denis Levaillant

Levaillant was born in Paris to Raymonde and Jean Levaillant. He is the grandson of the French poet and critic, Maurice Levaillant. He started playing piano at an early age of five. He began harmony, counterpoint and composition training at the age of twelve, under French music professor, Magdeleine Mangin in 1964, in Nancy, France.[5]

Levaillant first spent his teenage years in Nancy, then in Paris, where he studied composition and philosophy. In 1974, he received his Master's degree in philosophy from the University of Paris 1 Pantheon-Sorbonne. Later, he attended Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris, where he received training in music composition, orchestration and analysis under Gérard Grisey, Marius Constant and Claude Ballif.[5]

Levaillant started his professional career in the early 1970s. In 1973, he collaborated with Radio France and composed Circus Virus, a musical piece for France Culture. His first music had inspirations from his adolescence heroes, such as Karlheinz Stockhausen, Jimi Hendrix and Ornette Coleman.[6] Through the 1970s and 1980s, Levaillant released seven more albums and published a book on music improvisation and compositions, L'improvisation musicale, published by Éditions Lattès in 1980.[7][8] He collaborated with Alain Françon and Alain Guesnier and composed music for multiple musical shows and feature films during these years. He collaborated with and composed music for various French and international jazz musicians such as Jean-Jacques Avenel, Didier Levallet, Mino Cinélu, Jean-Louis Chautemps, Pierre Favre, Bernard Lubat, Tony Coe, Kenny Wheeler, Jean-François Jenny-Clark, Michel Portal, Barry Altschul and Barre Phillips.[9]

In 1980, at the age of 26, Levaillant began composing ballet music for the Paris Opera.[1] In 1981, he founded Bleu 17, a music institution that focused on producing musical shows.[10]

From 1983 to 2006, Levaillant created nearly 20 musical shows and operas that were performed around Europe. He collaborated with Barry Altschul and Barre Phillips to compose Les Passagers du delta in 1986.[4] Levaillant created the opera O.P.A Mia in collaboration with Enki Bilal during the Festival d'Avignon in 1990.[11][12] He collaborated with Dominique Bagouet, Stéphanie Aubin, Brigitte Lefèvre, Dominique Petit and Caroline Marcadé for more than 30 live shows.[6]

In the early 1980s, Levaillant participated in Institut national de l'audiovisuel and Groupe de Recherches Musicales's digital sound processing initiative, which inspired him to compose Piano Transit, a piano composition with electronic fusion, in 1983.[13] In 1988, Levaillant was awarded with Prix Italia by RAI for his work, in the category Speakers.[14]

In 1995, Levaillant was commissioned by Ensemble InterContemporain and Musée du Louvre for creating music for Fritz Lang's last silent film, Woman in the Moon.[15] Later that year, he co-founded the Cabinet de Musique Généraliste (CMG) with Frédéric Leibovitz, an initiative aimed towards promoting contemporary music in the audiovisual world. Over the years, prominent composers and musicians like Philippe Hersant, Allain Gaussin, Bruno Letort, L'Orchestre de contrebasses, Gilles Racot, Christian Zanési, Michel Redolfi, Cesarius Alvim, Calin Ioachimescu and Doina Rotaru became part of the Cabinet de Musique Généraliste.[1][16]

In the late 1990s, Levaillant performed live at various festivals and composed several works such as Echo de Narcisse, Le Clair, l'Obscur pour quatuor à cordes, Paysages de Conte and Tombeau de Gesualdo. In 2004, Lavaillant composed music for Enki Bilal's science fiction film, Immortal.[17]

In 2002, Levaillant composed the ballet La Petite danseuse de Degas produced by the Paris Opera.[18] It was premiered in 2003 at Opéra-Garnier and was performed again in 2005 and 2010.[19][20] France 2 filmed the performance and Arthaus released the DVD. In 2005, l'Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France commissioned him to compose music for the children's book L'Opéra de la lune by Jacques Prévert. In 2014, Levaillant wrote Panchamama Symphony, a composition for concert bands. The Andean music of Bolivia inspired Panchamama Symphony.[21]

In 2014, 15 universities in the United States invited Levaillant for the master classes and concerts.[22]

Apart from being a musician, Levaillant is a mountaineer. He has climbed in Oisans alongside Jean-Michel Cambon and Bernard Francou. Levaillant has also climbed new challenging routes in Bolivia with the French climber, Alain Mesili.[23]

Levaillant was married in 1972, to Christine Rigaud. The couple has two children, Julie and Fabien, and three grandchildren, Marilou, Elise and Andréa.[6]

• 1983 : Laureate of the Villa Médicis (New York)
• 1987 : Prix Tendance
• 1988 : Prix Italia, in the category Speakers

• Reference: Denis Levaillant – Bibliography – Book CDs, denislevaillant.net

• Reference: Denis Levaillant – Operas and shows, denislevaillant.net

• Official website
• "Denis Levaillant (biography, works, resources)" (in French and English). IRCAM.
• Denis Levaillant at IMDb