Philippe Chamouard

Philippe Chamouard took his doctorate at the Sorbonne on the orchestration of Mahler's symphonies, and the study left its mark: his own music treats the orchestra as an instrument able to hold intimate expression and very large statements within a single span. Born in Paris in 1952, he studied piano with Aline van Barentzen and composition with Roger Boutry at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique. The catalogue leans heavily towards orchestral and concertante writing — a long sequence of symphonies, concertos and symphonic poems that unfold by accumulation rather than by abrupt contrast, tonal centres still audible beneath a chromatic and brightly lit surface. He worked as a writer and editor for Deutsche Grammophon before teaching music writing at the Sorbonne between 1994 and 2004, and he has since lectured regularly and published a book on Mahler. The catalogue now runs to ten symphonies along with concertante works for trumpet, cello, violin, Celtic harp and Japanese koto, and his scores have been taken up by Radio France and the Orchestre Colonne, at French festivals and in countries from Poland and Romania to Finland, Canada and Vietnam.