Emmanuel Séjourné

Career

In 1984 he became professor of mallet percussion at the conservatory and won the European Audio-visual Grand Prix for his 1981 CD Saxophone et Percussion. As a player, he is considered one of the most prominent mallet percussionists and expanded vibraphone and marimba performance by introducing six-stick playing and the vibra-midi. He began to compose around the time he began teaching. While continuing his activities on stage and in teaching, Séjourné emphasized composition.

Teacher

In 1984 Séjourné began teaching mallet percussion at the conservatory and became head of the percussion department. He received his Certificat d'Aptitude in percussion in 1991. In 1994, he was appointed academic advisor to the French Ministry of Culture for the preparation of the Certificat d'Aptitude. He regularly sits on the juries of international competitions and gives master classes in the major music academies in Europe, Asia and North America. His educational compositions include a method of mallet percussion in 6 volumes. He is also co-author of 10 ans avec la percussion (2002).

Performer

In 1981 Séjourné and saxophonist Philippe Geiss founded the group Noco Music that recorded Saxophone et Percussion. The album was awarded the audiovisual European Grand Prix in 1984 by the Academie du Disque Français. In 1996, accompanied by the New London Chamber Choir, Séjourné premiered Séance for soprano, choir and MIDI vibraphone, by the English composer James Wood.

As a member of the contemporary ensemble Accroche-Note since 1988, he has premièred more than one hundred works by composers including Donatoni, Dillon, Aperghis, Manoury, Fedele, Mash and Pesson. His performance repertoire includes concertos, chamber music and solos.

He has given numerous recitals in Europe, Asia and North America and has performed with orchestras including the Orchestre Philharmonique de Luxembourg, with which he recorded Concerto for Marimba and Orchestra by Camille Kerger (1997). He has participated in many festivals, including "Archipelago" in Geneva, "Ars Musica" in Brussels, "Ultima" in Oslo and "Musica" in Strasbourg, the Huddersfield and Zurich festivals and the Venice and Zagreb Biennales. He has recorded for Universal, Fingerprint and Auvidis studios.

Séjourné has played improvised music and jazz, particularly with the Swiss guitarist Max Lasser, the Swiss percussionist Fritz Hauser and with Friedemann – the composer with whom he won the German Jazz Award Gold 2012 for The Concert, and in a mallet percussion duo with Sylvie Reynaert.

As a percussionist, Séjourné has specialised in marimba and vibraphone. He has been called "one of the world's best vibraphone players".

Composer

Séjourné began to compose around the time he became a faculty member at the conservatory, and focused increasingly on it while continuing to perform and teach.

In his works, Séjourné varies the ensembles, composing for orchestras, chamber ensembles and soloists. His music is eclectic. His compositions include incidental music and musicals, as well as dance and film music. He also works as a composer for France Culture, German television networks ARD and ZDF and the Franco-German cultural television channel ARTE.

His incidental music composed in 1984 won the award for Best Music at the Avignon Festival. In 1988, on the occasion of the 2000th anniversary of the City of Strasbourg, he was invited to compose the music for The Invaders for the Ballet du Rhin. He wrote Planet Claviers (1998) for the ensemble Percussions Claviers de Lyon on a commission from Grame Festival. The work was performed more than 120 times between 1998 and 2001. In 2001, returning to his preference for a mixture of forms of expression, he composed Famim, a piece combining improvised, contemporary and popular music, commissioned and premiered by the jazz pianist Michael Borstslap and the Amsterdam Percussion Group. In 2004, at the request of the Luxembourg National Theatre, he wrote the musical School Boulevard.

Séjourné composed concertos for percussion and orchestra, of which two attracted international attention. His Concerto for Vibraphone and String Orchestra, composed in 1999 and premièred by the Orchestra of the Auvergne, has been well received by critics. The Luxemburger Wort wrote: "[The concerto] provides living proof of the tremendous growth of the percussion and the emergence of the process of creation in contemporary music ...". The Concerto for Marimba and String Orchestra (2006), commissioned and performed by Bogdan Bacanu accompanied by the Salzburg Soloists, became a standard work in the marimba repertoire. Anne-Julie Caron, a Canadian percussionist, described it as "unique because it is one of the rare pieces to put the marimba in a romantic context". After a performance at the Washington Square Festival in New York, a reviewer called it "gorgeously composed". It was recorded on the album True Colors.

Séjourné is supported in his work by many sponsors, including the cities of Arras, Aurillac, Strasbourg and Luxembourg City, the General Council of Bouches du Rhone, the European Institute of Choral singing, and the Paris Opera. He was commissioned and recorded by Gary Cook, John Pennington, Ju Percussion Group, Robert van Sice, Nancy Zeltsman, Marta Klimasara, Katarzyna Mycka, Sylvie Reynaert, and Amsterdam Percussion Group. His works are often included in orchestral repertoires, including the Nagoya Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic, Sinfonia Toronto, Croatian Radio Television Symphony, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of Italian Switzerland, Camerata de Bourgogne, Bochum Symphoniker, Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn, Orchestre d'Auvergne, Cannes, Nice, and Pau.