Isabelle Aboulker
Born: October 23, 1938, Boulogne-Billancourt, France
BIOGRAPHY MUSIC RECORDINGS SOURCES
French composer, Isabelle Aboulker, is best known for her compositions for voice and has worked with singers for most of her career. She was born in 1938 in Boulogne-Billancourt, a suburb of Paris. Her grandfather, Henry Février, was a composer, and her father, Marcel Aboulker, was a film director and writer. She studied music theory and accompaniment at the National Conservatory of Music in Paris and composed for cinema, the theater, and television.
In 1998, Aboulker was commissioned by the Orchestre de Picardie to write the oratorio, L'Homme qui titubait dans la guerre, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of World War I. The next year, it was chosen as the French showcase piece when Weimar was the European City of Culture. In 1999, she was commissioned to write a comic opera for the Grand Théâtre of Tours, entitled Monsieur de Balzac fait son théâtre. Her works for children include Les Fables enchantées, Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella, and Tom Thumb.
Aboulker has been the recipient of many prestigious awards for her compositions including prizes from the Académie des Beaux-Arts and from the Société des Auteurs et Compositeurs Dramatiques.
As an accompanist and voice teacher in Paris, she has written solo vocal music, choral works, oratorios, and operas. Aboulker’s works show a keen attention to melody as well as an approachability for singers of all levels, including beginners, which is not always typical of contemporary composers.