Isabelle Aboulker (born 23 October 1938) is a French composer, particularly known for her operas and other vocal works. In 1999, she gained a prize from the Académie des Beaux-Arts and in 2000 the music prize of the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques for her numerous lyric pieces.

Life and work

Isabelle Aboulker was born in the Parisian suburb of

Boulogne-Billancourt Boulogne-Billancourt (; often colloquially called simply Boulogne, until 1924 Boulogne-sur-Seine, ) is a wealthy and prestigious Communes of France, commune in the Parisian area, located from its Kilometre zero, centre. It is a Subprefectures in ...

. Her father was the Algerian-born film director and writer Marcel Aboulker and her maternal grandfather was the composer Henry Février. While following a course in composition and keyboard studies at the

Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

in Paris, she started composing for the theatre, the cinema and television. She then worked for the Conservatoire as their chief accompanist and voice teacher and authored several educational works. In 1980, she turned to composing operas and subsequently many other vocal works. Because of her work with children, Isabelle Aboulker made a particular speciality of composing pieces, which would appeal to them or in which they could participate, as they do in ''Les Fables enchantées'', based on the work of

Jean de la Fontaine Jean de La Fontaine (, , ; 8 July 162113 April 1695) was a French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his ''Fables'', which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Euro ...

. Other subjects have included Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella and Tom Thumb (''Petit Poucet''). Among her work for adults are two operas based on plays by

Eugène Ionesco Eugène Ionesco (; born Eugen Ionescu, ; 26 November 1909 – 28 March 1994) was a Romanian-French playwright who wrote mostly in French, and was one of the foremost figures of the French avant-garde theatre in the 20th century. Ionesco inst ...

and settings of poems by Guillevic and Charles Cros. In 1998, she was commissioned by the Orchestre de Picardie to write the oratorio ''L'Homme qui titubait dans la guerre'' to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the ending of World War I and this was subsequently chosen to represent France when Weimar became European city of culture in 1999. To celebrate the second centenary of Honoré de Balzac's birth that same year she was commissioned by the Grand Théâtre in Tours to write the comic opera ''Monsieur de Balzac fait son théâtre''. The 2011 contemporary classical album Troika includes Isabelle Aboulker's song cycle ''Caprice étrange'', set to poems written in French by 19th-century Russian poets Mikhail Lermontov,

Aleksandr Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

and

Fyodor Tyutchev Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev ( rus, Фёдор Ива́нович Тю́тчев, r=Fyódor Ivánovič Tyútčev, links=1, p=ˈfʲɵdər ɪˈvanəvʲɪt͡ɕ ˈtʲʉt͡ɕːɪf; Pre-Reform orthography: ; – ) was a Russian poet and diplomat. ...

."Troika: Russia’s westerly poetry in three orchestral song cycles"
Rideau Rouge Records, ASIN: B005USB24A, 2011.

References

Note

*The article is based on French-language resources at th
website on the composer
and th
Classical Composers database
1938 births Conservatoire de Paris faculty Conservatoire de Paris alumni Women opera composers French women classical composers French opera composers French people of Algerian descent Living people People from Boulogne-Billancourt Women music educators {{France-composer-stub