The jury
Born in 1973, Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber, a Franco-Swiss citizen, lives and works in Paris.
She studied composition with Sergio Ortega and Allain Gaussin before entering the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where she studied with Frédéric Durieux. She followed the annual IRCAM curriculum under the mentorship of Philippe Leroux. She honed her skills with composers Salvatore Sciarrino, Gérard Grisey, Brian Ferneyhoug, Ivan Fedele and Luca Francesconi.
In 2008, she took up a residency at Villa Kujoyama in Japan, where she discovered the poetic coincidences between her language and that of traditional Japanese music. She will compose for the Noh actress Ryoko Aoki, while accompanying the premiere of her first piece for large orchestra at Suntory Hall by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra.
Back in France, she and filmmaker Jean-Charles Fitoussi are planning a four-handed opera-film that will take her to the Villa Médicis in 2010 and 2011. This opera, Mitsou, will premiere at the Musica Festival in 2014.
His precise, lively and transparent writing, with a taste for facetiousness and gentleness, is born of a strong interaction with the performers. The role of the voice is central - the voice of speech, the intimate voice - and permeates all her music, even instrumental. She embraces all genres, from solo to orchestra, from mixed music to opera, in a quest for sensuality and speed.
His work has been awarded numerous prizes: Le Prix Georges Enesco de la Sacem (2007), Le Prix Hervé Dugardin de la Sacem (2017), Le Prix Nadia et Lili Boulanger de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2021 and the Grand Prix de la Sacem in 2021.
She has received commissions from Radio France (Festival Présence, Chœur de Maîtrise de la Radio, Orchestre National de France, Journées de la viole, Création Mondiale d'Anne Montaron, spectacle jeune public), Ensemble intercontemporain, Philharmonie de Paris, Ministère de la Culture (DRAC), Ars Musica Festival (Brussels), Geneva Chamber Orchestra, Orchestre de Paris, Grand Théâtre de Provence...
She regularly meets young performers in residencies (Chœur les Eléments, Conservatoire Hector Berlioz de Paris, Conservatoire d'Argenteuil...) and young composers at the European Creative Academy in Annecy in 2021, the Unanimes! mentoring program in 2024 and the American Art Schools in Fontainebleau in 2024.
His works have been performed by leading ensembles and soloists such as Ensemble intercontemporain, Ars Nova, L'Instant donné, Cairn, Court-Circuit, 2E2M, Multilatérale, L'itinéraire, Ensemble Alter Ego, Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, Orchestre Philharmonique de Bruxelles, l'Orchestre de Picardie, l'Orchestre de Paris, Les Éléments, La Maîtrise de Radio France, the Dutilleux Quartet Raquel Camarinha, Shigeko Hata, Mathieu Dubroca, Lucile Boulanger, Vanessa Benelli Mosell, Léo Warynzki, Marin Alsop, Victor Jacob, George Jackson, Sofi Jeannin...