Michel Puig

Michel Puig (born 1930) is a French composer. In 1953 he studied composition with René Leibowitz. In 1957 he published his Sonata for Piano and, the following year, Fantasia for Violin and Piano.[1] In 1975 he composed a chamber opera Stigmates, to a libretto by Jacques Pajak.[2] Among the composer's influences is jazz, and at the premiere of Stigmates the performers included the jazz guitarist Claude Barthélemy as well as classical musicians including Vinko Globokar.[3]

A considerable part of Puig's oeuvre is musical theatre. Sa Négresse Jésus, Op. 26, a one-act work for three actors and small instrumental ensemble (1974) was staged by Michael Lonsdale at the Théâtre des Amandiers, Nanterre.[4] His Miroir, another one-act piece of music theatre, was premiered in Paris in 1975.[5] His Monet ou la passion de la réalité, a one-act work for solo actress accompanied by clarinet, violin and piano, was first performed at the Semaines musicales internationales d'Orléans in 1979.[6] Puig composed the music for a 1965 adaptation of Molière's The School for Wives starring François Périer,[7] and set Lewis Carroll's The Hunting of the Snark for a cast of five actresses and eight actors and an instrumental ensemble of five players, premiered at the Festival d'Avignon in 1971.[8]

Puig was for some time a teacher; his former students include Michèle Bokanowski.[9]