Fabien Lévy


Fabien Lévy is a French composer.
WWW fabienlevy.net

Biography

Lévy was born in Paris, France. After having been a jazz pianist, he studied composition with Gérard Grisey, orchestration with Marc–André Dalbavie and ethnomusicology with Gilles Leothaud at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1996 to 2000. Trained in mathematics and mathematical economics, he definitively quit science for music in 1994. In 2001, he went to Berlin on the DAAD Artist program, and in 2002 to the Villa Medici / Academy of France in Rome. In 2004, he shared the Ernst von Siemens Composer Prize in composition with Johannes Maria Staud and Enno Poppe. A former pedagogical advisor at IRCAM in Paris and professor of orchestration at the Hanns Eisler Music Conservatory in Berlin, he was 2006–2012 assistant professor in composition at Columbia University in New York, was 2012–2017 senior professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold in Germany, and since October 2017 has been senior professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater 'Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy' Leipzig. He has held numerous composition seminars and lectures in Europe and the US.
His instrumental works, influenced by the spectral school, some acoustic illusions and techniques from various non-Western cultures, mainly focus on paradoxes of perception and musical grammatology, and on techniques of "cross-rhythms" generalized to every musical parameter and "instrumental pointillism", and on deconstructing major concepts of the Western music. While using new technologies, he has also developed some "meta-works".

Catalog

Jusqu'à peu, for organ four hands Avant-demain, for six car horns De l'art d'induire en erreur, for three amplified voices and orchestra Chroniques déchantées, for Accordion and piano Murmelt mein Blut, for Soprano and piano Quand Friselda et son voisin, erotic Canon for 6 voices Nun hab' ich nichts mehr, for soprano, accordion, electric guitar and piano Als Gregor und Griselda, erotic canon for six voices à tue-tête for nine in space wind instruments Towards the door we never opened, for saxophone quartet Danse polyptote, for cello and accordion Après tout, for six singers, flute, saxophone, accordion, electric guitar, percussion and cello A peu près de, for two trumpets A propos, for flute, clarinet, piano, violin & cello Pour orchestre, for big orchestra Lexèmes hirsutes, for cello solo Querwüchsig, for ensemble Tre volti del volubile Ares, for wind symphonic orchestra Les murmures d'une orchidée solitaire, for two Guqin, Chinese flutes, hammond organ, harp, violin & cello Risâla fî-l-hob wa fî'lm al-handasa, for flute, clarinet, euphonium or tenor saxophone, violin & cello Soliloque sur , commentaries from a computer about a misunderstood concert Hérédo-ribotes, for solo viola and 51 orchestra musicians Où niche l'hibou ?, small pedagogical pieces for a young student and his teacher Coïncidences, for ensemble of 33 musicians Durch, in memoriam G. Grisey, for saxophone quartet L'air d'ailleurs-Bicinium, for alto saxophone and tape Dr.B., for baritone and bassoon. Musical theater, inspired by "die Schachnovelle" by Stefan Zweig Les deux ampoules d'un sablier peu à peu se comprennent, for solo amplified harp

Former students (selection)