Philippe Bodin is a French composer whose music, drawing on poetry, literature, wordplay, and Renaissance canonic techniques, aims to transcend geographic and stylistic boundaries. His works, prize-winning in international competitions from Los Angeles to Moscow, have been performed by ensembles including the Philharmonique and Choir of Radio France, the American Composers Orchestra, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Orkest de Volharding, and the Chamber Orchestra Kremlin. A Guggenheim Fellow and American Academy of Arts and Letters laureate, he holds a D.M.A. from Yale University and has taught composition at Yale, Lawrence, and Illinois Wesleyan universities.
Download short bio ↓Philippe Bodin is a French composer whose music, drawing on poetry, literature, wordplay, and Renaissance canonic techniques, aims to transcend geographic and stylistic boundaries. Often built from strict contrapuntal procedures — canons, retrogrades, inversions, and temporal distortions — his works nevertheless seek fluidity, sensuality, and dramatic immediacy. Questions of time, memory, recurrence, and transformation frequently shape his musical language.
His music has been performed in Europe, North America, and New Zealand by ensembles including the American Composers Orchestra, St. Luke’s Chamber Ensemble, Las Vegas Festival Orchestra, Xtet, Verge, Picosa, Chamber Orchestra Kremlin (Russia), the Bernini quartet (Italy) and the NZ trio (New Zealand).
Commissions and collaborations have included Radio France, TM+, Concours International Violoncelle en Seine (France); Orkest de Volharding (The Netherlands); the Da Capo Chamber Players, Left Coast, Empyrean, Lost Dog New Music ensembles, the Ho-Ahuvia Duo, The Esoterics choir, and the Mannes, Mojave, Eroica trios (USA). Other interpreters and commissioners include the Kamarikuoro Kampin Laulu and Emo Ensemble (Finland), the Vancouver Chamber Choir (Canada), and the Kungsbacka trio (Sweden).
A Guggenheim Fellow and laureate of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Bodin has received awards, grants, and commissions from institutions including the Copland, Mandel, and Jerome Foundations, the Barlow Endowment, ASCAP, Meet the Composer, and Chamber Music Partnership.
Bodin holds a Doctor of Musical Arts from Yale University, where he studied with Martin Bresnick and Nicholas Maw, and later taught composition. He has also taught at Lawrence University and Illinois Wesleyan University, and has held residencies at MacDowell, Yaddo, the Atlantic Center for the Arts, the Virginia Center for Creative Arts, and Banff.
Before focusing exclusively on composition, Bodin pursued studies in mathematics, physics, architecture, piano, organ, and voice. He maintained a fifteen-year career as a vocalist, performing opera and early music repertoire under conductors including Myung-Whun Chung, Philippe Herreweghe, and Marc Minkowski. Active as a pianist, conductor, stage director, and vocal pedagogue, he has worked with opera companies and conservatories in both Europe and the United States.
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