Celebrated French composer gives lectures at SHCM

Lin Zaiyong poses with French composer Tristan Murail after a meeting at the conservatory.

SHCM President Lin Zaiyong met with Tristan Murail, French composer and founder of Ensemble l'Itinéraire on May 28, 2015. He thanked Murail for giving lectures at the conservatory and hoped him to have a pleasant week on campus.

Murail said he felt honored to be invited again by the conservatory after five years. The school is full of opportunities and its students are at really high levels. He hopes to have long-term academic exchanges with the SHCM in composition.

The French composer discussed cooperation details with Ye Guohui and Wen Deqing, director and deputy director of the Composition Department, as well as Chen Xiaoyi, director of the International Exchange Department.

He also talked about the spectral technique for composition which involves the use of fundamental properties of sound as basis for harmony.

With college majors in Arabic and economics, Murail went to study composition at the Paris Conservatory under Olivier Messiaen from 1967 to 1972. He taught computer music and composition at the IRCAM in Paris from 1991 to 1997, and was professor of composition at the Columbia University in New York City from 1997 until 2010.