Um pflanze, Léo Marillier, October 2015

Léo Marillier was given the impulsion to compose when he pursued a Masters at New England Conservatory. As a trained violinist, he has performed with Ensemble Intercontemporain, 2e2m, les Cris de Paris, and Cairn Ensemble, giving premieres of works by O. Neuwirth, A. Zubel, S. Giraud, P.-Y. Macé, D. Rotaru, A. Bancquart. After he finished his analysis and écriture cursus at the Paris Conservatory, he went on to study violin in Boston, while frequenting the composition classes of Stratis Minakakis and John Heiss. He has since 2017 joined the Paris Conservatory in an Artist Diploma in contemporary repertoire with a project around Xenakis’ music, which has also led him to work with composers at CNSM and IRCAM (William Dougherty, Louis Goldford, Florence Baschet, Frédéric Durieux, Francesco Uberto, Filippos Sakagian), he gave in 2018 the premiere of Eun-Wha Cho’s Jouissance de la Différence V in Berlin. Meanwhile, he is pursuing a Masters in Research at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague, focusing on performance editions and graphic design of Beethoven’s and Feldman’s manuscripts. His other artistic endeavors include poetry, graphic design and performance art. His ‘résurgences’ for solo violin, on commission by ADIE, has been premiered at Studio 104 in Radio-France, and some of his works have been premiered at the Harvard Society Club in Boston, and Boston University.

His compositions, while not refuting any past or of philosophy, are exercises in the counterpoint and density of ideas : from the opening to the end, an uncertainty about what is, and what is in opposition, to an ‘other’. All and any references are unconscious, therefore true, worked out in collective memory. Leo does not revendicate any ties to an era or to a social group, while being informed by readings, paintings, and the ideas behind them, the latter being brought out in the open by the poetic process, giving either an opaque or diaphanous quality to the hearing. This is also prominent in his transcriptions, which constitute an oblique, diffracted glance at the past. He works with decay and freedom of things and beings, and is drawn to mythology.