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Éric Gaudibert

Described as an essential figure of new music in Switzerland, Swiss composer, pianist and teacher Éric Gaudibert was born in Vevey on 21 December 1936. He studied in Lausanne with Denise Bidal and Hans Haug, and then in Paris with Alfred Cortot, Henri Dutilleux and Nadia Boulanger.

From 1972-74 in Orléans, he was associated with the French avant-garde. Influences include Bartók, Schoenberg and Messiaen, and his mature style embraced multiple external media - electronics, poetry, visual art, literature - to raise questions of space, timbre and philosophy. His quick thinking and natural curiosity led him far from the norms of contemporary composition, towards a huge variety of genres, and the borders of creatitivity itself.

A person with a very rich personality yet a restrained manner, he was a professor at the conservatories in Geneva and Neuchatel, where he encouraged a feast of younger Swiss composers. From 2001 he was president of the Commission artistique du Concours de Genève. He dedicated his life to many activities associated with academically trained musicians, including interpretation as a pianist, theoretical analysis and composition.

He lived in Confignon, where he died aged seventy-five on 29 June 2012.

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