Biography
French composer, researcher and pedagogue Jean-Philippe Calvin was born in 1974. He read music at the Hartt, University of Hartford in Connecticut (USA), the Centre de Création Musicale Iannis Xenakis (CCMIX) and IRCAM in Paris. He studied composition with Robert Carl, Ingram Marshall, Iannis Xenakis and Sir Michael Tippett. He has also collaborated with Gerard Pape, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Curtis Roads and Luc Ferrari.
He has received commissions for his music from several major international institutions and music festivals, including the Rockefeller Foundation, Columbia University, the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, the Genesis Foundation, the Gaudeamus Festival, the Cannes International Film Festival, the Festival de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges and NIME04 in Japan. His compositions have been performed throughout the world by an international range of leading performers and ensembles.
He was an academic member and researcher at the Iannis Xenakis Musical Creation Center in Paris. Along with his academic duties he was appointed to the position of co-director of the centre, responsible for the development of research in and funding for contemporary music.
Jean Philippe Calvin is a musician with an avid interest in every form of music making. His range of compositions includes large-scale orchestral works (Omega, 1998 - Sophia, 2007 - Kadosh, 2009), chamber music (Kleztet, 2007 for woodwind quintet - Caliban's Dance, 2008 for solo percussion), and a cycle for solo instruments and electronics (ad libitum) called "FLUX".
Calvin's first opera, "La Cantatrice Chauve" (The Bald Soprano, after a play by Eugene Ionesco) was commissioned, developed and premiered at the Royal Opera House Covent Garden, London, in November 2006. The French production of La Cantatrice Chauve took place at the Théâtre Athénée Louis Jouvet in Paris in April and May 2009. The opera has been programmed for revival in the 2011 musical season in Paris at the same theatre.
"Kadosh" (for Klezmer clarinet and orchestra), commissioned by David Krakauer, received its premiere (with David Krakauer as soloist) on 8 November 2009 at the Champs Elysées Theatre with Lamoureux Orchestra.
Jean Philippe Calvin is a professor at the Royal College of Music in London.