Martin MATALON
guest composer
Martin Matalon was born in Buenos Aires in 1958. He studied at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, where he obtained a Master's degree in composition. Between 1989 and 1996 he founded and was musical director of the New York-based ensemble Music Mobile, dedicated to contemporary repertoire.
In 2005 he received a prize from the J.S. Guggenheim Foundation in New York and the prize from the Institut de France Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 2001, he received the City of Barcelona Prize for the Music of Metropolis and the Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. In 1989 he received the "Opera Autrement" prize from the Centre Acanthes for the production of the chamber opera El Milagro Secreto based on the story of the same name by J.L. Borges.
In 1993 he settled permanently in Paris, where IRCAM commissioned him to compose the music for the newly restored version of Fritz Lang's Metropolis. After this considerable work, Martin Matalon immersed himself in the universe of Luis Buñuel and wrote three new scores consecutively for the three surrealist films that the Aragonese filmmaker made between 1927 and 1932.
His catalogue includes a large number of chamber and orchestral works. Begun in 1997, the Trames series -works on the edge of solo writing of the concert and chamber music- and the Traces series -intended for solo instruments with electronic transformation in real time- constitute a kind of "intimate diary" for the composer and form an important part of his catalogue.
At the same time, Martin Matalon develops an activity as an orchestra conductor. He has directed the Ensamble Modern, MusikFabrik, La Orquesta Philharmonica de Monte-Carlo, Ensemble Court-circuit, Barcelona 216, or Ensamble Intercontemporain, etc.
Martin Matalon has written, among others, for the Orquesta de Paris, the Orquesta National de France, the Orquesta National de Lorraine, the Orquesta de Barcelona i Nacional de Catalunya, the Ensemble Intercontemporain, MusikFabrik, Barcelona 216 or Ensemble Modern. He was composer-in-residence with the Arsenal de Metz and the National Orchestra of Lorraine (2003-4), at the Création i Recherche center La Muse en circuit (2005-2010), Stavanger Festival (2011), in the city of Aubervilliers (2012) and in 2014 he was the composer-in-residence at the Les Arcs festival.
From 2010 he is professor of composition at the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional d’Aubervilliers / la Courneuve.