François Nicolas

Biography

François Nicolas (1947) has lived in Paris since he entered the Lycée Louis-le-Grand (1964).

He conceives his existence in the form of a 4+1 voice heterophony.

1. The voice of music, which has always captured him. First piano and organ (with Albert Alain), then jazz (with Bobby Few), before taking up composition (with Michel Philippot) and becoming assistant at the CNSM in Paris, co-founder of the contemporary music magazine Entretemps, composer-researcher at IRCAM (Modalys, multi-HP source…) and associate professor at ENS-Ulm. He calibrates the music he composes (some forty opuses – ed. Jobert) to those of his pantheon: Bach-Schumann-Schonberg.
2. The voice of mathematics, first encountered early on (the dazzling algebraic unknown x), then rekindled in preparatory classes (the adjunction-extension of Dedekind’s cuts). Hence, after graduating from the École polytechnique (1967), a persevering study (personally conducted as a “barefoot mathematician”) of modern and contemporary mathematics, which has led him to organize the Ircam-Ens mamuphi (mathematics-music-philosophy) seminar since 1999.
3. The voice of militant politics, encountered as early as 1966 (Vietnam War and Cultural Revolution) and rekindled by May ’68. The result is almost sixty years of organized loyalty, made up of mass liaison and renewed studies, right up to the recent initiatives Long Walks (magazine and group).
4. The voice of male-female love, the sinuous voice of intimate happiness, which we’ll just mention here: living for many years with Geneviève Lloret, he is the father of five children, father-in-law of three and now a happy grandfather.
5. Compatibilizing these four voices into a heterophony mobilizes a fifth voice: the resonant, reverberating cantus firmus of a general intellectuality (musical, mathematical, political as well as amorous), initially constituted within the Christian framework of subjects of faith (Catholic action of the JEC) before turning to contemporary philosophies of subjects of truth (D.E.A. with Alain Badiou).

His publications include La singularité-Schoenberg (ed. Ircam-L’Harmattan) and Le monde-Musique (4 volumes; ed. Aedam musicæ).

Discography (ed. Triton)

INFINIS : Toccata, Sonata and Trio played by Florence Millet, Jeanne-Marie Conquer and Alain Damiens

HÉTÉROPHONIES : Triple-CD release with Duelle and Petrograd 1918 (See the booklet below)

• Duelle
  • Marie Kobayashi, mezzo-soprano
  • Nicolas Miribel, violin
  • Fuminori Tanada, piano
  • Timée (loudspeaker ball): Olivier Warusfel, Nicolas Misdariis and René Caussé
  • Musical assistants: Éric Daubresse, Philippe Dao
• Petrograd 1918
  • Florence Millet, piano
  • Inès Nicolas, narrator
  • IKO (loudspealer ball): Carlo Laurenzi
• Cantus firmus (A film directed by Jean Seban based on Petrograd 1918)
• Among the eight documentary films :
  • Portrait of pianist Florence Millet
  • Portrait of the narrator, Inès Nicolas

Writings

On Music

• “The third listening is the good one (concerning hearing considered as a process of integration)” Musicæ Scientæ (n° 2, 1997)
• “What is a musical logic?” (décembre 1999, Forum Diderot, Ircam)
• “What can we hope for from the musical logics established in the twentieth century?” (march 2000, Ars Musica – Brussell)
• Questions on logic: writing, dialectics and musical strategies (2000)
• Radiation Control on Multi-Loudspeaker Device : La Timée (N. Misdariis, F. Nicolas, O. Warusfel, R. Caussé) – ICMC 2001
• « Defining music ? » (on André Boucourechliev)
• Is Schoenberg Wagner’s future ? (New York, May 1st, 2006)
• How to theorize music today in the light of mathematics? A musician’s point of view – trad. of “Gazette des mathématiciens”, n°119, January 2009
  • version pdf
• Badiou and Music: A musician’s investigation (trad. Liam Flenady) – Journées Alain Badiou (Paris, October 2010)
• “Transfiguration” Trio : Elements of analysis (trad. Liam Flenady)
• Duelle [programme notes] (trad. Liam Flenady)
• The Hexagon of Opposition in Music (trad. Liam Flenady) – june 2012, Beirut, Lebanon (3rd World Congress on the Square of Opposition)

On Politics

• See the Communist Magazine Long Walks
  • Communist Orientation (n°1- February 2024)
  • Kierkegaard and Nihilism (n°2 – June 2024)
  • The mathematical Concept of Emergence (n°3 – October 2024)
  • Adjunction-extension Revolutions (n°4 – February 2024)
  • For a Materialism of imaginary Popssibilities (n°5 – June 2025)

Videos (in english)

• From François Nicolas :
  • Interview (Buenos-Aires, avril 2004) : French American Television
    • Part One
    • Part Two
    • The All
  • Towards a terza pratica extending the Music-world by the adjunction of heterophonies (Belgrad, 25 April 2014)
  • Forum “Balance and Excess in Composition” (International Forum of Composers, Festival Enescu, 24-09-2017)
  • What to do at the passing point of XXI th century that has been reached through the crisis of Covid-19? (Solidarity Conference 2020)
• On François Nicolas :
  • Matthew Lorenzon: Le monde-Musique – A view from the antipodes (Ircam, 8 avril 2016)