For Philippe Hersant it is always a question of memory: recent memory, distant memory, veiled, haunted, almost obsessional; all the more idiosyncratic because it's not symptomatic of a "post" or "neo" something or other. For him, composition is sculpted from sonic images, mental images or even "musical" ones in the shape of quotations. He would readily ascribe a semantic value to his musical ideas, either because they function with a text or in a cinematic or theatrical context. Wherever his compositions co-exist in a symbiotic relation with other art forms, Philippe Hersant harnesses an evocative power producing, purely and simply...music.

Born in Rome, Italy 1948. Lives and works in Paris. Bachelor of arts. Composition prize at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he studied with André Jolivet. Scholarships at the Casa Velázquez in Madrid (1970-72) and at the Villa Médicis in Rome (1978-80). Composer in residence with the Lyon National Orchestra; multiple prize winner: SACEM (best contemporary creation), SACD (New Talent Prize), Grand Prix Musical de la Ville de Paris (1990) Prix Maurice Ravel (1996) and the  Grand Prix de la Musique from the SACEM (1998). Cezame publishes principally his film music and is co-publisher, with Durand, of "Les Ephémères" written for Alice Ader to whom the work is dedicated.

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