Grégoire Hetzel

Grégoire Hetzel Composer

Biography

Grégoire Hetzel was born in Paris in 1972. Alongside his studies at the Paris Conservatoire (CNSMD), which he entered at the age of 15 (solfège, composition, music history, aesthetics, etc.), he studied orchestration with Jean-François Zygel, whom he regards as his true mentor. Zygel also introduced him to improvisation and composition, and, as early as 1986, to the music of Reich, Glass, Adams, Pärt, and Kancheli, all of whom would leave a lasting impression on him. Bartók, Stravinsky, Britten, and Shostakovich, as well as popular music, also count among his influences.

Grégoire Hetzel has composed more than one hundred original scores for film and theatre, collaborating with directors such as Denis Villeneuve, Mathieu Amalric, Arnaud Desplechin, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Bertrand Blier, Anne Fontaine, Louis Garrel, Nicole Garcia, Catherine Corsini, among others. These collaborations have led him to explore a wide range of styles, from symphonic music to jazz, as well as electronic music and pop.

In 2014, he wrote a video opera, La Chute de Fukuyama, premiered by Daniel Harding and the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, featuring performers including Jennifer Larmore, Isabelle Calls, and Kevin Greenlaw.

Between 2024 and 2026, he embarked on an extensive tour (France, Italy, Canada, Switzerland, Belgium) with Catherine Ringer, for a performance entitled L’érotisme de vivre, for which he composed the music and performs it on piano.

Grégoire Hetzel is also the author of a novel, Le vert paradis, published in 2003 by Gallimard.

Currently in

Immerse in the Paris Opera universe

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