French composer and pianist, Thierry Machuel has devoted most of his work to choral art, on texts by contemporary authors in many languages. His repertoire thus highlights the specific link between poetry, languages and cultures, and patiently weaves a choral repertoire concerning today more than forty countries and territories: France, Germany, Austria, Russia, Italy, Spain, Chile, Argentina, Portugal, United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Syria, Palestine, Haiti, Mauritius, New Caledonia, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Reunion Island, Saint-Pierre-Et-Miquelon, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Croatia, Bulgaria, Greece, Malta, Cyprus, Turkey, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Finland, Japan, Romania, Basque Country, Israel, Denmark, French Polynesia, Guyana, India, Canada, Britain.

He has long been interested in testimonial texts, written by Resistance fighters or communities with unique life experiences, such as those collected from prisoners between 2008 and 2011 (Clairvaux box set; However, the walls… Grand Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros 2010 with Julien Sallé). First composer received at the Villa Médicis (1996-98) and Casa Velazquez (1999-2001) for a project exclusively for a cappella choir, he was awarded the Sacem/Francis and Mica Salabert prize for vocal music in 2008, the Beaumarchais Foundation grant in 2009 and a commission from the Ministry of Culture in 2010 for the creation of his opera Les lycéesuses, as well as the Grand Prix Lycéen des Compositeurs 2011 awarded by a very large majority of students and their teachers. His choral works are sung in Europe, Asia and the Americas. Several of them were studied by French high school students as part of the musical option of the 2013 and 2014 baccalaureate. In June 2017, he was appointed Composer in Residence at Villa Kujoyama (Kyoto, Japan) for the spring of 2018.

He has set to music texts by many poets around the world, including Yves Bonnefoy, Langston Hughes, Paul Celan, Sophia de Mello Breyner, Ossip Mandelstam, Gabriela Mistral, Takuboku, Jaan Kaplinski, Guillevic, Amina Saïd, Yvon Le Men, Daniela Attanasio, Jean-Yves Léopold, Mahmoud Darwich, Roberto Juarroz, Maram Al-Masri, Benoît Richter, Tanella Boni, José Angel Valente, Andrée Chedid, Gérald Bloncourt, Kathleen Raine, Hélène and René-Guy Cadou, Rabindranath Tagore …

They conducted his music: Pierre Roullier, Mathieu Romano, Loïc Pierre, Eric Eric Ericson, Emmanuèle Dubost, Sofia Söderberg, Tony Ramon, Raoul Lay, Valérie Fayet, Bernard Thomas, Christine Morel, Mathias Charton, Anne Koppé, Daniel Reuss, Cathy Tardieu, Frédéric Pineau, Marie Baudart, Laurence Equilbey, Marie-Hélène Pisson, Denis Gauthérie, Laetitia Casabianca, Aurore Tillac, Geoffroy Jourdain, Catherine Gaiffe, Patrick Sublaurier, Alix Debaecker, Benoît Grenèche, …. he had a regular collaboration with the Méliades vocal quartet and the Quinte&Sens octet.

Co-initiator of the “L’Europe de mes Rêves” project in Upper Normandy with the National Education (2015-2017), he has been carrying out educational actions on the Resistance and citizenship for the past ten years (oratorios Une femme de parole 2005, Une étoile errante 2006, Voir Ensemble Maintenant 2009-2011, Humanitudes 2012, Les droits et les devoirs du citoyen 2013, …à l’humaine condition …2015).

Invited composer in several festivals since 2008 (Ombres et lumières à Clairvaux, Musique en Brocéliande, festival d’Auvers sur Oise, Florilège vocal de Tours, rencontres de choeurs d’enfants de Champcueil, PubliChorus, festival international de chorales scolaires d’Yvetot), he created the vocal and instrumental ensemble Territoires du souffle, which performed at the Cité de la musique (Paris), the Cité de la voix (Vézelay) and the Collège des Bernardins, as well as the Yezh trio with Caroline Chassany and Jean-Luc Tamby. The recordings of his works have been supported since 2003 by the Foundation for Art and Research.