Hughes de Courson

Hughes de Courson is a French type-setter and musician. Former member of the group Malicorne, it tests now in solo of daring the stylistics mixtures.

Biography

Hughes de Courson is born in Paris in a family from military tradition from the Pas-de-Calais (one of his/her uncles is not other than the Maréchal Leclerc). His/her father on mission for the glassmaking Saint-Gobain takes along with him his family: Hughes de Courson thus passes its childhood to Spain with his/her four sisters. He learns from many musical instruments, of which the battery, the low one, the electric guitar, the piano, of the cromorne, the bagpipe and even the violin! He takes in particular lessons of guitar with Perico el del Lunar.

On its return to Paris, it starts studies in Hypokhâgne then Khâgne with the Lycée Henri-Iv where it writes with his comrade Patrick Modiano of the songs joined together in the album Bottoms of the barrel , taken again thereafter by artists such as Francoise Hardy ( Etonnez me Benoît , Dame Mouse trotte ), Régine, Hugues Auffray or Casse pipe.

Follow experiments in small groups of rock'n'roll in the middle of studies as varied as psychology, a first year of Sciences Po, and even sociology with the faculty of Nanterre in 1968.

Reformed P4 with the military service, Hughes de Courson meets in the infirmary of the barracks Gabriel Yacoub, musician Lebanese with whom it founds the group of folk Malicorne in 1973, group which meets a certain success, glanant several gold discs and selling meadows of 2 million albums. 10 years later, after having left 13 albums, the east group dissolves.

Hughes de Courson launches out then in the production within Black the Ballon label in which sign artists like daN Ar Braz, Kolinda or the Rattan like Pascal Chassin (ex-guitarist of the Komintern group) for the European News. It takes an active part also in the album " Photocopies" of Olivier Kowalski (ex Malicorne and Komintern). It also launches out in compositions for the Contemporary dance (it carried out 22 of them on the whole): the musician signs in particular the music of creations of the choreographer Philippe Decouflé, of Karine Saporta, François Raffinot, Jose Besprosvany or Marceline Lartigue.

In 1992, he is the prize winner of the Prix Léonard de Vinci, (a purse of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs) what enables him to study the music during three years in many countries of which Egypt, Israel, Syria, Yemen, Turkey, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania or Macedonia. Extremely of this experiment, it starts to develop a métissée music. It creates in particular a Oratorio entitled Yam played by 150 Palestinian and Jewish musicians, presented to Nazareth and Jerusalem in 1993 with its Spondo group, like Nouba Beshtakeïa , work presented to the Opéra of Cairo. With the group Spondo, it launches out in a single album but it is a commercial failure.

In 1994, it signs the music of the Mediterranean Jeux (put in scene by Jerome Savary).

It is this same year that it creates for itself with Pierre Akendengué the album Lambarena , in homage to the Doctor Schweitzer and in which it decides to marry the music of Jean-Sebastien Bach with the African traditional music. Lambarena is an at the same time critical and public success (80 000 specimens sold in one year).

In 1998 Mozart the Egyptian leaves, who this Marie time music of Mozart at the Eastern rates/rhythms with the assistance of Nasredine Dalil and Ahmed-el-Maghreby. This album is also a great success, in particular near the public (double gold disc). However, the disc is far from to have achieved the unanimity, testifies very hard criticism to it to Jacques Drillon in the Nouvel Observateur : “it is not any more music, it is a brothel”. The exit of these two albums gives place to great concerts with the Festival of Marseilles and the Abbaye of Saint-Denis.

In 1999, change of course, not to be locked up in a systematic procedure of interbreeding of musics a priori very different, De Courson, helped of Tomas Gubitch off launches out in the recording of the album Songs Innocence on which voices of children of the whole world sing the compositions of the two accomplices. Hughes de Courson also continued its activity of producer, in particular with the singer of flamenco El Lebrijano (louse Lagrimas de Cera ), Gilding, Kepa Junkera, Hevia and a Finnish production, Värttinä.

With O' Stravaganza , De Courson takes again the formula of Lambarena or Mozart the Egyptian . This time, it is a meeting between Baroque music and Celtic Musique in which Vivaldi by the unit He is played Giardino Armonico, directed by Giovanni Antonini. The music is confronted with the instruments of an Irish and Breton unit composed of the best musicians of the moment. This music was very favorably received by the public, at the same time on the level of the discs and on scene, in particular with the Festival interceltic of Lorient, with the Festivals of Quimper, Guingamp, and with the festival of Baroque music of Herne (Germany).

In 2003, Hughes de Courson carried out an album mixing electronic music and medieval sacred music, Lux Obscura , then in 2005 a second shutter of Mozart the Egyptian . It was also put at contribution to rearrange the national anthem of the Qatar.

The great concert of Mozart the Egyptian with the Zenith of Paris which was to take place in October 2006 was cancelled. Hughes de Courson tries to take again the event at the end of March with the Grand Rex of Paris, follow-up of a round with Saint-Pétersbourg, Moscow and Dubai.

Discography

With Malicorne

12 albums of which mythical the " Almanach"

Albums solo

Bottoms of the barrel Hughes de Courson and Patrick Modiano at Harmonia Mundi
Lambarena: Bach to Africa (1995)
DecOdeX (1995), with Sebastien Libolt for the spectacle éponyme of Philippe Decouflé
Mozart the Egyptian (1998)
Songs off Innocence (1999)
O' Stravaganza: Vivaldi the Irishman (2001)
Lux will obscura (2003)
Mozart the Egyptian vol. 2 (2005)

External bonds

Critical of Jacques Drillon in Nouvel Observateur

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