Laurent Petitgirard

Laurent Petitgirard was born on June 10, 1950 in Paris. He studied piano with Serge Petitgirard and composition with Alain Kremski. In 2000 he became a member of the Academie des Beaux-Arts and was honored by the Grand Prix lycéen des compositeurs. Since 2001 he has been “Resident Composer” in Mulhouse, working with La Filature-Scene National, the Orchestre de Rhin-Mulhouse, and the Conservatory. He is currently President of the Comité National de la Musique and vicepresident of Société des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs de Musique. His career as a composer of chamber and symphonic music (with more than 20 works) and music for films (130) is interspersed with appearances as a conductor with many renowned orchestras all over the world including the Orchestra del Teatro La Fenice, the BBC Concert Orchestra, the Baden-Baden Philharmonic, the Spanish National Orchestra, the Monte-Carlo Philharmonic, and the Bamberg Symphony. In 1989 he founded his own ensemble, the Orchestre Symphonique Français, for which he served as music director until 1997. He has led orchestral accompaniments for many important soloists such as Cecilia Bartoli, Montserrat Caballé, José Van Dam, and Alfredo Kraus. Operas he has conducted include for example Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte, Weber’s Der Freischütz, and Massenet’s Werther, and of operettas we can name Lehár’s Die lustige Witwe as well as Offenbach’s La belle Hélene and La vie Parisienne. As a composer he has tried his hand at perhaps all musical genres: besides the opera Joseph Merrick dit Elephant Man he has written for example the symphonic ballet Euphonia (1989), the symphonic suite Le Marathon (1992), a Violoncello Concerto (1994), the oratorio La Porte de Vie (1975), a Piano Quintet (1976), and many other works. In 1992–1993 Mr. Petitgirard conceived the idea of composing an opera whose main character would be two-faceted. Originally he intended to compose The Picture of Dorian Gray after Oscar Wilde, but then the writer Eric Nonn offered him the story of the Elephant Man. The result is his first opera, Joseph Merrick dit Elephant Man to a libretto by Eric Nonn, which will have its world premiere at the Prague State Opera on February 7, 2002 under the composer’s baton in a co-production with the Nice Opera (where it will open on November 29, 2002) and the Lübeck Opera (where it will be performed in German). A television recording of the performance in Nice is being planned. Concert performances will be given by the Berlin Philharmonic on April 28, 2002 and the Filature de Mulhouse at the end of the year. A recording of the complete opera was made already in February 2000 and has been highly acclaimed by critics. In 2001 he gained for his opera Prix Musique de la Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatique. Petitgirard’s Le Song de Merrick for harp was also written in 1999.

As a conductor Mr. Petitgirard has made a large number of recordings. With his own orchestra he has recorded for example Mozart’s Requiem, Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and Seventh Symphony, Brahms’s Piano Concerto, Violin Concerto, and Third Symphony, Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto, Third Symphony, and Fourth Symphony, Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto, Ravel’s Bolero, concertos by Saint-Saëns, Honegger’s oratorio Jeanne d’Arc au bűcher, Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1, and many of his own works. In the second half of last year in Prague he recorded three of his compositions: Maigret chez le Ministre, Maigret et le Marchand de Vin, and Maigret et le Fou de Saint-Marguerite.

Detailed information about the composer including a complete list of his works, compositions he has conducted, recordings, and much additional material can be found at the internet address www.petitgirard.com.