Prix Annelie de Man 2012
First International Competition for composers and harpsichordists
Maurice Ohana

Maurice Ohana

French

1913 France - 1992 France

Biography

Maurice Ohana (June 12, 1913 – November 13, 1992 in Paris) was an Anglo-French composer of Sephardic Jewish origin.

Ohana was born in Casablanca, French Morocco. He was a British citizen until 1976, as his father had been born in the British overseas territory of Gibraltar. He originally studied architecture, but abandoned this in favour of a musical career, initially as a pianist. He studied under Alfredo Casella in Rome, returning to France in 1946. Around this time he founded the "Groupe Zodiaque", which fought against prevailing musical dogma. His mature musical style shows the influence of Mediterranean folk music, particularly the Andalusian cante jondo.

Ohana's output includes the choral works Office des Oracles and Avoaha (1992), three string quartets (1963, 1980, 1989), and two suites for ten-string guitar: Si le jour paraît... (1963)[1] and Cadran lunaire (1981-2)[2], as well as a Tiento for six-string guitar (1957).[3] He also wrote an opera entitled Syllabaire pour Phèdre.

He is also known for his extensive use of microtonality; for example, third- and quarter-tones in pieces like Le Tombeau de Debussy and Si le jour paraît.... He was influenced by the use of microintervals in the cante jondo. [4]

Ohana rarely composed for large symphony orchestra: Synaxis (1966), Livre des Prodiges (1979) and T'Harân-Ngô (1973-1974). He composed two cello concertos, one piano concerto and a guitar concerto (1950-58; dedicated to Narciso Yepes).[

Works
Date Title Instrumentation Execution time
1970 Carillons pour les heures du jour et de la nuit harpsichord 7minutes

Composer sent on September 4th 2010. Last update on September 4th 2010.