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Graciane Finzi

Composer

Graciane Finzi was born in Casablanca in 1945. Her parents, both teachers at the Casablanca Conservatory, instilled in her a love of music and, while attending the same Conservatory, she attained the level necessary to enter the National Advanced Music Conservatory in Paris when she was only 10 years old. While she was there, she followed courses in Music theory, History of music, Sight-reading, and Piano, in the class led by Joseph Benvenuti. When she left the Paris Conservatory a few years later, she had obtained: First prize in harmony, First prize in counterpoint, First prize in fugue, and First prize in composition.

She has since been awarded the Grand Prix for Symphonie Promotion from the SACEM, the Georges Enesco Prize from the SACEM, the SACD Prize for her opéra Pauvre Assassin. In 2001, she obtained the SACEM Grand Prix for all her work. She was also awarded the Institut de France Chartier Prize in 2006, the Prix Musique SACD in 2013 and the Institut de France Prix Florent Schmitt in 2020.

Between 1975 and 1979, she was Musical Director of La Défense Festival in Paris. In 1979, she was appointed FulI Professor at the Paris National Advanced Music Conservatory.

Across her career, Graciane Finzi has been the Official Representative for the French Association for Artistic Action (1997-2000), Vice-President of the International Society for Contemporary Music, and the resident composer with the Lille National Orchestra (2001).

The works of Graciane Finzi have been played throughout the world by major soloists and orchestras (Paris, New York, London, Rome, Moscow, Helsinki, Vancouver, Nuremburg, Buenos Aires, Cologne, Calgary, Bremen, Rio de Janeiro, Berlin, Madrid, Warsaw, Mexico, Athènes, Barcelona, Santiago…).

“During my early period as a composer, l took account of the individuality of different orchestral instruments, bringing them together in juxtaposed groups which each had its own. Dynamic, impulses, colours and rhythm, thus multiplying what we call in the profession the “true parts”. Nowadays, l have moved towards a more harmonic language, where the multiplicity of sound levels are organized to form giant harmonies. Poles of attraction form between the notes which guide our understanding of a music which never aims at abstraction, but the immediate expression of life as the deepest feelings of man.
Can we use the term romanticism? Perhaps. l do not know.
Expression? Yes, l hope so.
Feelings? Very certainly, that is what l am striving for.”

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