Anne-Marie FIJAL

Until the age of four I did not speak but communicated with the outside world through melody. By nine I wanted to dedicate my life to music. My initiation into this universe was intense and through the piano, with the connivance of a father passionate about music. I finished my studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris with four first prizes, including one for piano.

While studying classical music, I improvised, experimenting with piano, looking to reinvent the instrument, finding new styles, soundscapes and pushing tonal ranges. Music is all around me and I absorb it all; from dodecaphony to Arabic, Indian, African and free-jazz.

But which music am I to live with?

In the 1970s' I was deviated from the path of classical concert pianist by a series of remarkable encounters which marked me deeply and were to orientate me towards composition: Jean Hubeau, Marcel Beaufils, Girolamo Arrigo, John Cage, Ernest Pignon Ernest, Michèle Katz, Carolyn Carlson, Jean-Louis Barrault, Colette Magny…

Performances and first commissions to compose for the stage followed. This dialogue between music and dance, theatre, painting and cinema has become indispensible to me and a motor of creativity.

I have realised a number of musical theatre projects.

In recitals given both in France and abroad, I interpret only a repertoire which inspires me: Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Ravel, Scriabine…and always accompanied by my own works.

Whether composing for orchestra, ensembles or solo instruments, I have a single burning obsession: to write music which sows a disturbing sense of solitude, unsettling and, at the same time, radiant.

Prix de la Critique Dramatique et Musicale
Chevalier de l'Ordre National du Mérite