Bio

(1927 - 2013). For half a century Bernard Parmegiani has produced over a hundred major works, more than sixty of which are considered "concert" pieces. Some have defined the progress of electro-acoustic music (Violostries, Jazzex, Capture Ephémère, De Natura Sonorum, Exercismes...), others are quite simply lodged in in the French collective unconscious like the jingle tone at Roissy airport. He has composed innumerable scores for cinema and television, videos, theatre and mime...

The music of Bernard Parmegiani consists of movements, continuums, straight lines, curves, repetitions and distortions...he functions as a genuine sonic designer, an utopian inventor of a music to be watched with the ears and heard with the eyes. He is constantly counterpoising opposites: natural and artificial, acoustic and electro-acoustic, interior and exterior, dense and sparse...The titles of his works explicitly announce this his intention. The interweaving of such notions may lead the listener to the brink of a vertiginous chasm, an aural parallel to Escher's tortuous tessellations. Nonetheless, frequent repetition, impromptu refrains "techno" treatments way ahead of their time, all make his work relatively accessible, easily crossing over into the world of contemporary electronica. Beginning as a sound engineer for French television, Bernard Parmegiani soon joined G.R.M. (Musical Research Group) heartily encouraged by Pierre Schaeffer. His first major work "Violostries" appeared in 1963, a confrontation between sounds extracted exclusively from the violin and a violin soloist. He has explored other fields too: His piece "Jazzex" (1966) is a rare and successful meeting between "musique concrète" and jazz. "Du Pop à l'âne (1968) is an admixture of Pink Floyd bass lines, scattered piano notes, African percussion, church organ...He left GRM in 1992 moving to his own studio « Fabriquasons ». His collaboration with Cézame began in 1995 with «Génériques Potentiels» (CEZ 4009) followed by «Questions de Temps» (CEZ 4021) in 2001. "

Awards received:
Grand Prix du disque 1979
Grand Prix des Compositeurs de la SACEM 1981 - 5ème Victoires de la musique 1989
Prix Magisterium Concours International de Bourges 1991
Chevalier de l'ordre du mérite 1991
Prix « Golden Nica » de Ars Electronica de LINZ 1993
« Coup de Coeur» Académie Charles Cros pour Portrait Polychrome CDMC/INA GRM 2003
Prix du Président de la République de l'Académie Charles Cros pour le coffret CD comportant une grande partie de son oeuvre 2008.