Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber
For the Musikdorf Ernen, Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber writes a new work for Piano solo, Flute, Clarinet, Percussion and String Quintet.
Learn more about Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber in our Festival Magazine
The following works by Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber are performed at the Festival Musikdorf Ernen:
Saturday, 18 October 2025, 8pm | with the Quatuor Thalia
String Quartet No. 3 «Onze heures et demie dans les herbes» (2024)
Sunday, 19 October 2025, 2pm | Vivien Heinzmann, piano
«Toccata» (2020)
Friday, 17 July 2026, 8pm | Piano Recital 5 with Gile Bae
«Toccata» (2020)
Saturday, 8 August 2026, 6pm | Festkonzert 3
New Work for Piano solo, Flute, Clarinet, Percussion and String Quintet (2026)
World Premiere – commissioned by the Festival Musikdorf Ernen
Monday, 10 August 2026, 8pm | Festkonzert 5
«Danses douces» for Violin and Violoncello (2021)
Swiss Premiere
Wednesday, 12 August 2026, 8pm | Festkonzert 6
«Les roses héroïques» for Piano Trio (2021)
Swiss Premiere
Thursday, 10 September, 8pm | Helix Trio
«Les roses héroïques» for Piano Trio (2021)
Biography
Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber was born in 1973 and is a French-Swiss citizen. She lives and works in Paris. She studied composition with Sergio Ortega and Allain Gaussin before moving to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where she studied with Frédéric Durieux. At IRCAM, she completed the annual course under the mentorship of Philippe Leroux. She continued her education with the composers Salvatore Sciarrino, Gérard Grisey, Brian Ferneyhough, Ivan Fedele, and Luca Francesconi.
In 2008, she travelled to Japan to the Villa Kujoyama to encounter the poetic coincidences between her language and traditional Japanese music. She composed for the Noh actress Ryoko Aoki and simultaneously accompanied the premiere of her first piece for large orchestra, performed at Suntory Hall by the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra. Upon her return to France, she planned a joint film opera with the filmmaker Jean-Charles Fitoussi, which led her to the Villa Medici in 2010 and 2011. This opera, Mitsou, premiered at the Festival Musica in 2014. In 2024, the itinerant opera Le Sang du glacier premiered at the Opéra de Lyon.
Claire-Mélanie Sinnhuber’s precise, lively, and transparent writing, which offers both wit and fluidity, arises from a strong interaction with the performers. The voice plays a central role—as the voice of the word, as an intimate voice—and permeates all of her music, including her instrumental works. She appropriates all genres, from solo to orchestra, from mixed music to opera, in search of sensuality and speed.
Her work has received numerous awards: The Georges Enesco Prize from SACEM (2007), The Hervé Dugardin Prize from SACEM (2017), The Nadia et Lili Boulanger Prize from the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 2021, and the Grand Prix from SACEM in 2021. She has received commissions from Radio France (Festival Présence, Choeur de Maîtrise de la Radio, Orchestre National de France), the Philharmonie de Paris, Opéra de Lyon, the Ensemble intercontemporain, the Ministry of Culture (DRAC), Festival Ars Musica (Brussels), the Geneva Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Grand Théâtre de Provence.
She regularly meets with young performers as part of residencies (Chœur les Eléments, Conservatoire Hector Berlioz de Paris, Pôle supérieur Franche-Comté Bourgogne, CRR de Paris,...) and young composers at the European Creative Academy in Annecy in 2021, as part of the Unanimes! mentorship programme in 2024, and at the Écoles d'Art Américaines de Fontainebleau in 2024.
Her works are performed by leading ensembles and soloists, including the Ensemble intercontemporain, L'Instant donné, Cairn, Court-Circuit, 2E2M, Multilatérale, L'itinéraire, Ensemble Alter Ego, the Tokyo Metropolitan Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestre Philharmonique de Bruxelles, the Orchestre de Picardie, L'Orchestre de Paris, L'orchestre National de France, Les Éléments, La Maîtrise de Radio France, the Dutilleux Quartet, the Hermès Quartet, Joséphine Poncelin, Raquel Camarinha, Shigeko Hata, Mathieu Dubroca, Lucile Boulanger, Vanessa Benelli Mosell, Léo Warynzki, Marin Alsop, Victor Jacob, George Jackson, and Sofi Jeannin.
