Marie-Hélène Bernard

After scientific studies, Marie-Hélène Bernard began studying music at the universities of Pau, Paris VIII and Paris IV (Doctorate in music). A pupil in the electro-acoustic class of Jean Schwarz at the ENM of Gennevilliers, she completed her apprenticeship with Pascal Dusapin at the Centre Acanthes and with Bernard Cavanna at Atem.

She has composed electro-acoustic, mixed and instrumental works. Her music has been played in Europe, USA, Canada, Chile, China, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.
She has been invited in residence at the studios of the GRM, La Muse en Circuit, CIRM, GRAME, SCRIME, La Grande Fabrique, MIA and Césaré.

She has got commissions from French Ministery of Culture (Lu Chen, first performed by the Ensemble Aleph), INA-GRM (Dans les plis de la caverne, for tuba and live electronic, premiered by Gérard Buquet - Gexin/cœur de pigeon for fixed sounds, awarded by IAWM - Les Ailes du phénix, for mouthorgan and live electronic, premiered by Wu Wei - Une hirondelle dans la narine du grand bouddha, for 5.1 speaker system), Radio France-Musique (Hanshan, first performed by the ensemble Fleur de Prunus for series Alla breve), Festivals FUTURA and Détours de Babel, Studio Césaré, Foundation Marcelle et Robert de Lacour (À cordes croisées, for harpsichchord and lute shamisen), AsianArt Ensemble (Sieben Sterne, for string trio, Korean flute, percussion, electronic and vidéo), Shanghai Conservatory, and Orchestre National de Lyon (Chantiers de la création).

Catalogue disponible sur : http://www.cdmc.asso.fr/en/ressources/compositeurs/biographies/bernard-marie-helene-1953

She was a price-winning of « La Villa Médicis hors les murs » (French Foreign Minister- Institut Français) in 2003 (residence in China in 2003-2004), and also in 2013 (residence in South Korea)

Strongly attracted by Asia, she is interested in setting up confrontation between western instruments and traditional Asian instruments. She also likes to call on other arts, especially poetry. She composed in 2009 the multimedia concert Une seconde est un monde with Ma Desheng, a Chinese painter, calligrapher and poet : recently she created a multimedia installation from ethnological archives for the Festival « Détours de Babel » 2013.