Joël-François Durand

Joël-François Durand

Joël-François Durand (born 1954, Orléans, France) studied mathematics and music in Paris, then composition with Brian Ferneyhough at the Musikhochschule Freiburg (Germany) and with Bülent Arel and Daria Semegen at the State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA). He followed masterclasses and composition courses by György Ligeti and Luciano Berio at the Centre Acanthes. In 1987 he attended the course in computer music at IRCAM.

Durand has been the recipient of scholarships from the DAAD, the Fulbright Foundation, the French Ministry of Culture. He was awarded the Kranichsteiner Preis from the Darmstadt Summer Courses for New Music in 1990.

He has been teaching composition and theory at the University of Washington since 1991, where he is currently Professor of Composition, as well as Associate Director of the School of Music.

As a guest composer and lecturer, Durand has contributed to the “Centre de la Voix” in Royaumont, France where he was co-director of the composition course in 1993, the Civica Scuola di Musica in Milan (Italy), the Royal Academy for Music in London (UK), the Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik in Darmstadt, the “VIII. Internationaler Meisterkurs für Komposition des Brandenburgischen Colloquiums für Neue Musik”, Rheinsberg (Germany), among others. In the Fall 1994, he was Visiting Assistant Professor in composition at UCSD.

Durand’s music has been commissioned and performed by many leading ensembles and orchestras including Ensemble Intercontempo-rain, London Sinfonietta, Contrechamps, Arditti Quartet, ASKO, Nieuw Ensemble, Ensemble Köln, Recherché, musikFabrik, New York Philomusica, Counter)Induction, EarPlay, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philarmonique de Radio France, Deutsches Symphonie Orchester Berlin.