David Chaillou is a French contemporary classical composer currently living in Paris. Chaillou has scored for orchestras, voice, string quartets, chamber ensembles, soloists, and electronic music. His works are intended for concert performance, dramatic production and cinema.
Born into an artistic family, David Chaillou is the son of the French writer Michel Chaillou. He started taking piano lessons at the age of seven at the Ecole Normale de musique de Paris with a student of Samson François. He went on to study at Conservatoire National de Région de Boulogne-Billancourt. Chaillou then attended Le Conservatoire de Paris CNSMDP where he received degrees in piano, acoustic music and harmony. He studied history and then music history at Paris-Sorbonne University, earning a PhD in French Opera for which his doctoral thesis was later published (éditions Fayard). Chaillou began writing at the age of twenty.
The composer’s works have been played in France and abroad at Musicora Festival (Paris), Pompidou Centre, Le Conservatoire de Paris CNSMDP, Lille Nouveau siècle, Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Schönberg Center (Vienna), Mozarteum Salzbourg, Beethovenfest (Bonn), Carinthischer Sommer (Villach), Felicja Blumental Music Center (Tel Aviv), University of Cambridge and the Moscow Conservatory.
His works have been broadcast on Radio Classique, Radio France, France Télévisions, Mezzo TV, Arte, Telewizja Polska SA, Radio Orpheus (Russia), and Radio ORF (Austria) among others.
The composer has undertaken collaborations with other artists, namely actors Karl Markovics (who starred in the Academy Award-winning film The Counterfeiters), Jacques Gamblin (Silver Bear best actor award-winner for [Conduct]), Jean-Pierre Marielle (featured in The Da Vinci Code),Michel Vuillermoz (member of Comédie-Française theater company) and writers Arnaud Delalande and Olivier Balazuc as well as Patrice Alexandre, sculptor and professor at École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris.
Chaillou remains dedicated music education as well as to creating music.
Chaillou is currently a tenure associate professor at ESPE University Lille Nord de France ESPE University Lille Nord de France center for higher education, teaching Music Education to primary school teachers (master). Prior to starting there in 2006, he taught music at the middle school and high school level for four years as well as 6 years at the undergraduate and graduate level at Paris-Sorbonne University and Université de Lorraine, where he taught harmony, counterpoint and musical analysis.
Awards and Distinctions
2015 - award from Beaumarchais SACD Foundation (English: Society of Dramatic Authors and Composers) for opera due to performed in 2017
2014 - French National Centenary Committee award for Léger au front
2011 - composer-in-residence at the Dora Maar House, the Brown Foundation Fellows Program and MFAH
2011 - SACEM Emergence prize for film music
