FLOATING SOUND GALLERY

Vienna

Michèle Bokanowski

Composer

Michèle Bokanowski (Photo: Patrick Bokanowski)

Michèle Bokanowski (born 9 August 1943) is a French composer. She was born in Cannes, and was educated in traditional music. She continued her studies in composition in Paris with Michel Puig and in electronic music in 1970 at the Service de la recherche de l’ORTF (ORTF) directed by Pierre Schaeffer. She also studied computer music at the Faculté de Vincennes and electronic music with Eliane Radigue.

After completing her studies, she worked as a composer and married Patrick Bokanowski, with whom she often collaborates for film. With Catheringe Dasté she cooperated for theater works, and with choreographers Hideyuki Yano, Marceline Lartigue and Bernardo Montet for dance.

“Michèle Bokanowski's art is one of densities, much like the density of a given colour, a given depth. Her sound textures are, indeed, profound, both in the space occupied by their frequencies and the sharp temporal trail they leave behind. Here lies the composer's immense talent that finds the right development for each sound, letting it blossom before altering it, adapting the musical structure to let the sounds “be”, even if it sometimes means returning to the most basic form, such as a loop. This is a sign of great honesty and artistic sensitivity; able to stand back and let the music become music. It is the most radical, the most accurate gesture of composition. The two pieces on this record, dissociated in time, both in their approach and destination, nevertheless reflect, each in its own way, Michèle Bokanowski's highly singular and insightful musical intuition.”
François Bonnet, Paris, 2020