Biography André Hodeir

André Hodeir (22 January 1921 – 1 November 2011) was a French violinist, composer, arranger and musicologist.

André Hodeir's initial training was as a classical violinist and composer. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he took Olivier Messiaen's analysis class, and won first prizes in fugue, harmony, and music history. While pursuing these studies, he discovered jazz, and embarked on an exploration of all music forms, jazz as well as classical.

Hodeir was a founder, in 1954, and director of Jazz Groupe de Paris, made up of nine musicians, including Bobby Jaspar, Pierre Michelot and Nat Peck. He was the author of two books of Essais (1954 and 1956), of numerous film scores, including Le Palais Idéal by Ado Kyrou, the Jazz Cantata for the film Chutes de pierres, danger de mort by Michel Fano, etc. Hodeir was the founder of his own orchestra during the Sixties (Catalyse, Arte della commedia dell', Transplantation, Crepuscule with Nelly, etc., available in an album by Martial Solal, in 1984). He composed, in 1966, the monumental jazz cantata Anna Livia Plurabelle, on James Joyce's text, and in 1972 of Bitter Ending, by the Swingle Singers and a jazz quintet, on the final monologue of Finnegans Wake.

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