Prague Proms festival

Vladimir Cosma

Vladimir Cosma was born April 13^th 1940 in Bucarest, Romania, into a family of musicians.
His father, Teodor Cosma, was a pianist and conductor, his mother a writer-composer, his uncle, Edgar Cosma, composer and conductor, and one of his grandmothers, pianist, a student of the renowned Ferrucio Busoni.
After receiving first prizes for violin and composition at the Bucarest Conservatoire of Music, he arrived in Paris in 1963 and continued his studies at the Conservatoire National de Paris, working with Nadia Boulanger. As well as for classical music he discovered early on a passion for jazz, film music and all forms of popular music.
From 1964 he made a number of international tours as a concert violinist and began to devote himself more and more to composing. He wrote various compositions including: « Trois mouvements d’été » for symphony orchestra, « Oblique » for violoncello and string orchestra, music for theatre and ballet (« Volpone » for the Comédie Française, the opera « Fantomas », etc).
In 1968, Yves Robert entrusted him with his first film music for « Alexandre le Bienheureux ».
Vladimir Cosma has since composed more than three  hundred scores for feature films and TV series. His numerous successes in the cinema have notably been in collaboration with Yves Robert, Gérard Oury Francis Veber, Claude Pinoteau , Jean-Jacques Beneix, Claude Zidi, Ettore Scola,  Pascal Thomas, Pierre Richard, Yves Boisset, André Cayatte, Gérard Lauzier, Jean-Pierre Mocky, Paul Carpita, Edouard Molinaro, Jean-Marie Poiré, and among which:
Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire, Diva, Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob, La Boum, le Bal,  l’As des As, la Chèvre, Les Fugitifs, Les Zozos, Pleure pas la Bouche pleine, Dupont Lajoie, Un Eléphant ça trompe énormément, La Dérobade, le Père Noël est une ordure, L’Etudiante, La Vouivre, La Gloire de mon père, Le Château de ma mère, Le Souper,  Cuisine et dépendances, Le Jaguar, le plus beau métier du monde,  les Palmes de Monsieur Schutz,  Le Dîner de Cons, Le Placard…
Vladimir Cosma also featured in major French and American television productions:
Michel Strogoff, Les Aventures de David Balfour (Kidnapped), L’Amour en héritage(Mistral’s Daughter), Chateauvallon, Les Grandes Familles,  Les Mystères de Paris, Les années Infernales (Nightmare Years), Les Coeurs Brûlés, les Yeux d’Hélène, la Trilogie marseillaise (Marius, César, Fanny).....
More recently, Vladimir Cosma collaborated with new directors such as:  Frédéric Sojcher, Serge Ioan Celibidache, Stéphane Robelin, Julien Hallard...
Film music allowed him to approach and develop many different musical styles: jazz (with music written for famous soloists such as Chet Baker, Toots Thielemans, Don Byas, Stéphane Grappelli, Jean Luc Ponty, Philip Catherine, Tony Coe, Pepper Adams),  songs (for Nana Mouskouri, Marie Laforêt, Richard Sanderson, Diane Dufresne, Herbert Léonard, Mireille Mathieu, Nicole Croisille, Lara Fabian, Guy Marchand etc),  original compositions inspired by folk-music (for Gheorghe Zamfir, Stanciu Simion « Syrinx », pan-flute,  Liam O'Flynn- pipes, Romane-guitar), as well as classical music (Berlin Concerto for violin and orchestra, Concerto for Euphonium and orchestra, Concerto Ibérique for trumpet and orchestra, Courts Métrages for brass quintet…)
In 2006 he conducted the world premier of his composition « Eh bien ! Dansez maintenant », Divertissement for narrator and symphony orchestra, from the Fables of Jean de la Fontaine, at the Victoria Hall in Geneva, with L'Orchestre de la  Suisse Romande and Lambert Wilson as narrator. Conducting the  Orchestre National de France he gave a first performance in Paris of this work in December 2010 at the Théatre de Champs-Elysées.
Vladimir Cosma wrote the opera “Marius et Fanny”, adapted from Marcel Pagnol, for which the first production took place in September 2007 at the Marseille Opera with Roberto Alagna and Angela Ghiorghiu in the title roles, as well as Jean-Philippe Lafont in the role of César. The performances were featured several times on television on the channels ARTE and FR3.
In 2008 he composed the Musical Comedy « Les Aventures de Rabbi Jacob » performed at the Palais des Congrès in Paris, with Eric Metayer, Marianne James, Spike, Julie Victor…
More recently, in June 2009, Vladimir Cosma conducted the world premier in the Eglise Sainte-Madeleine de Beziers, of his cantata entitled « 1209  », for soprano, narrator, children's choir and orchestra, written especially for the 8th centenary of the Sack of  Beziers.
For the last few years,  symphonic concerts  hold an  important place in Vladimir Cosma's work  conducting  symphonic orchestras in France as well as abroad
From Geneva (Victoria Hall) to Budapest and St.Petersburg, from Bucharest to Moscow (the Kremlin), by way of Paris (Théâtre du Châtelet), Grand Rex, (Théâtre des Champs-Elysées,...), he is largely dedicated to the re-writing of his scores and to orchestral conducting. In 2011 and 2015, for his return to Romania after fifty years of absence, he gave several concerts with the orchestra and choirs of the Filharmonica Georges Enesco of  Bucharest in the mythical hall of  the Romanian Athenaeum.
In October 2016, and in 20017, Vladimir Cosma performs his 50 years of career conducting the Romanian National Orchestra together with choirs and soloists at the Palais des Congrès in Paris and on tour in Geneva, Lyon, Lille and Rouen.
He has appeared with major symphony orchestras in France and other countries accompanied by such prestigious soloists as Ivry Gitlis, Vadim Repin, Wilhelmenia Fernandez, Patrice Fontanarosa, Jean Luc Ponty, Didier Lockwood, Stanciu Simion « Syrinx », Philip Catherine ….
A book of interviews with Vincent Perrot entitled « Vladimir Cosma comme au cinéma » appeared in 2009, Editions Hors Collection, and an anthology of his film music currently regrouping 149 complete original soundtracks in three box sets has been issued.
Vladimir Cosma has received numerous awards: two Césars for the best movie score, for Diva in 1982 and Le Bal in 1984; two Golden Seven for the best T.V. music in 1986 and 1991, the prize for the music of Diva in Moscow in 1982, the Phoenix Spa festival prize in 2008; the Henri Langlois prize of the Cinémathèque Francaise in 2010.
In 1983, in Cannes, he was awarded the Grand Prix du Disque for the ensemble of his works. In 1990 he received the Grand Prix Sacem for audiovisual music. In May 2001 he won the Philip Award Prize at the festival in Warsaw for the best film music created in Europe, and in 2003 the Grand Prix Sacem for « La Musique de Films ».
He has also obtained numerous gold and platinum records all over the world (France, Germany, Japan, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Holland, Scandinavia...)
Vladimir Cosma is Chevalier dans l’Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur,  Grand Officier du Mérite Culturel Roumain, Commandeur des Arts et des Lettres as well as Doctor Honoris Causa of  National University of Music of Bucarest. He also received the royal decoration "Nihil Sine Deo" awarded by King Michael 1er  of Romania.