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Komponist

Karol Beffa

Karol Beffa

Karol Beffa pursued both general and musical studies in parallel after being a child actor between the ages of seven and twelve in more than fifteen films (notably performing with the Piccolo Teatro di Milano under the direction of Giorgio Strehler and playing Mozart at the age of eight in Marcel Bluwal’s TV movie).

After being admitted first in his class at the École Normale Supérieure, he studied history (Bachelor’s), English (Master’s), philosophy (Master’s at the University of Cambridge), and mathematics. He entered the Paris Conservatoire (CNSM) in 1988, where he earned eight First Prizes (harmony, counterpoint, fugue, 20th-century music, orchestration, analysis, vocal accompaniment, and piano improvisation). He also ranked first in the music agrégation exam and initially taught at Paris IV-Sorbonne University (1998–2003), then at the École Polytechnique (2003–2009). In 2003, he earned a PhD in musicology with a dissertation on Ligeti’s piano études. Since 2004, he has been a Lecturer at the École Normale Supérieure. He was elected in 2012-2013 to the annual artistic creation chair at the Collège de France and, in 2015, he completed his habilitation to supervise research.

In 2000, the Turin Biennial of Young Artists selected him to represent France. In 2002, he was the youngest French composer programmed at the Présences festival. From 2006 to 2009, he was composer-in-residence with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse. As a pianist, he regularly accompanies silent films, text readings, participates in illustrated concerts, and improvises on themes suggested by the audience. As a composer, he has written around thirty film scores and four theater scores. In 2016, he was awarded the Grand Prix Lycéen des Compositeurs, and in 2017, the SACEM Grand Prix for symphonic music for his career achievements. He won the Victoires de la Musique Classique in 2013 and 2018.

As an actor, he appeared in the 2023 feature films Crush by Sonia Buchman and Un jour fille... by Jean-Claude Monod. As a writer, he is the author of about fifteen books, with his latest publications being Bernard Herrmann (Actes Sud) and, with Guillaume Métayer, a three-volume collection titled Camille Benoit musicien (La Rumeur libre).

His most recent monographic CDs include Into the Dark (Aparte), Blow upEn blanc et noirDe l’autre côté du miroir (Indesens), Douze Etudes (AdVitam), Talisman (Klarthe), Media Vita, and Galerie des glaces (Klarthe).

Language spoken : French

 

Photo credit : Ameělie Tcherniak

Kreuzfahrten in Begleitung von Karol Beffa