Gilbert Amy

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Gilbert Amy (born August 29, 1936, Paris) is a French composer and conductor. In 1954 he entered the Conservatoire de Paris where he was taught and influenced by Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud and studied piano with Yvonne Loriod. His first compositions (Œil de fumée) date from 1955. In 1957 he met Pierre Boulez, under whose direction he composed his Piano Sonata. A year later Boulez commissioned from him a work called Mouvements which was performed in Darmstadt by the Orchestre du Domaine Musical, an ensemble whose goal was to promote new music. From 1958 to 1961 he attended the courses given by Karlheinz Stockhausen in Darmstadt. In 1962 Jean-Louis Barrault named him adjunct music director of the Odéon Theater in Paris. At the same time he undertook a career as conductor in Europe and Argentina. Between 1967 and 1973 he succeeded Pierre Boulez as the Director of the Domaine Musical. From 1973 to 1975 he was music advisor to ORTF and worked to "reform" the music heard on the radio. From 1976 to 1981, he was music di rector of the Nouvel Orchestre Philharmonique of Radio France. In 1984, Gilbert Amy succeeded Pierre Cochereau as Director of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique at Lyon, while continuing to compose music. His talent as a composer has won him a number of awards including the Grand Prix National de la Musique in 1979, the Grand Prix of SACEM in 1983, the Grand Prix Musical of the City of Paris in 1986 and the Prix of the President of the Republic from the Academy Charles Cros in 1987.