Nicolas Mondon is a french composer born in 1980 in Nantes (France). He has studied composition with Philippe Leroux, Allain Gaussin, Horatio Radulescu, Gérard Pesson and is graduated from Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP, Master II, 2011). He then obtained a PhD in musical composition by working on the link between his music and the traditional Javanese gamelan (doctorat SACRe, CNSMDP & PSL University, 2022: « Bronze beaten into grass: the musical processes of Central Java as a model for musical composition ») on the direction of the composer Gérard Pesson and musicologist Martin Kaltenecker.
His previous studies included a diploma in classical piano (DEM), continued with Peter Feuchwanger and Jeff Cohen as an accompanist for voice, and others in improvisation, jazz, javanese gamelan, historic harpsichord, medieval music… In 2005 he took part at the « Voix Nouvelles » masterclasses in the Royaumont Abbaye. He has studied computer music at IRCAM (Paris) and then be there a composer in research in 2015, working on a unique system of augmented instruments (SmartInstruments by Adrien Mamou-Mani).
Extended technics and hybrid instruments are one of his significant research axis, in order to built his own « meta-instrument » with his own timbre. On this basis of inharmonic spetrum, he tries to elaborate a personal harmonic system of tensions and consonance. Mondon's universe is situated between several musical worlds (prepared piano, Pessonian playing styles, micro-intervals, Javanese colotomy…), elements from which he draws with « a sometimes playful energy that gives a perpetual spurt and renewal to gestures and events » (M. Kaltenecker). It is also situated between two temporalities, constantly oscillating between stasis and flux. Moreover, convinced by the connection between space and his music, Mondon regularly collaborated with visual artists and dancers as Jean-François Leroy or Susanna Fritscher, Desire Davids or Kadek Puspasari.
His orchestral piece Berceuse-tableaux was premiered at the Salle Pleyel in Paris (2007). He awarded the « Prix d'encouragement de l'Académie de Beaux-Arts » in 2010, Price Chevillon-Bonnaud and SACEM Claude Arrieu in 2014, and the fellowships Gargonza Arts 2013 (Italy) and Akademie Schloss Solitude (Stuttgart, 2104) ; he received State Assistances for the composition of a new piece several times ; his first monographic CD released in 2022 with ensemble InSoliTus on the label Initiale is called « Bronze battu en herbes ».
As a teacher, Nicolas Mondon was notably the assistant for analysis of contemporary music of Michael Lévinas at the CNSMDP. He is currently teaching composition and he is the artistic director of the contemporary ensemble InSoliTus. As a researcher, he published several articles and dissertations on his work and on the prepared piano. As a pianist, he mostly performs contemporary music, his own compositions and improvisations on the prepared piano, alone or in chamber music.
Nicolas Mondon's music is singular, immediately proposing a sound universe of his own, intimate and slightly strange, testifying to his curiosity and culture, a personal rereading of recent developments as well as his knowledge of extra-European music, for example. His scores are elaborated with a characteristic blend of rigor and freedom, and he demonstrates qualities of research and inventiveness that become more refined and assertive with each new piece and experiment.
Philippe Leroux
Translation from French: DeepL.
The care taken with this recording [the CD Bronze battu en herbes] and the poetry that emanates from it enchant us. The musicians' commitment quality of their playing, the musicians of InSoliTus and their conductor Javier González Novales, an accomplice phalanx celebrating its tenth anniversary this year.
Michèle Tosi, La quête sonore de Nicolas Mondon
Translation from French: DeepL.
