Early life and education

Casadesus grew up in a family of artists.^[1] His father, Marius Casadesus (1892-1981), was a violinist and a composer, and his mother, Gladys Thibaud (1928), was a pianist. He began studying music with his parents, learning the violin with his father at the age of 3, and piano at age 5 with his mother.

He grew up in Montmartre (Casadesus Square) in Paris, and from the age of 9 years old, he studied at the Conservatoire de Paris, training 8 hours daily, which earned him the First Medal in theory as well as a prize in piano at the Versailles Conservatory.

He started his career at the age of age 22 as an artistic director at EMI Classics,^[2] where he oversaw the recording of over 200 albums including artists such as Mstislav Rostropovich, Leonard Bernstein and Georges Prêtre. While in contact with these artists, he broadened his musical language and orchestration style.

By age 30, he wrote and recorded his first album, Voyage immobile,^[3] but after his second album, Les Oiseaux de rivière noire (1982), he focused on composing for the cinema and stage.

Composing for the stage and for images

Casadesus then became interested in the way music influenced the process of writing and directing a film or play. His first experiences in theatre and the strong working relation he enjoyed with the two stage directors allowed him to explore new sounds, for example, using new electronic sounds and synthesizers that had just appeared in the 1970s and 1980s. Between 1983 and 1997, he composed no less than 22 musical creations for the stage, mainly for Jean Danet's Les Tréteaux de France theatre company and the Théâtre du Marais of Jacques Mauclair. In particular, he composed the music for Molière's play, L'Avare, which was awarded a prestigious Molière Award in 1989 for the direction by Mauclair^[4]

Casadesus was then contacted by the American film director Bob Swaim, who hired him in 1997 to replace the famous composer John Barry and write the soundtrack for his feature film, The Climb, with John Hurt, Gregory Smith and David Strathairn.^[5]

In 1998, he composed the very first original soundtrack for Marie et le vin, a book by Claire Huynen published by Éditions du Cherche-Midi.^[6] The following year, Casadesus wrote the soundtrack for the cartoon Babar: King of the Elephants, by Canadian director Raymond Jafelice.^[7] In 1999, he wrote the score for an important TV project, Jésus, directed by Serge Moati. It was a huge success, reaching an audience of 10 million viewers during its unique broadcast, on Dec. 25 1999, on France's main television channel.^[8] In 2001, he wrote seven hours of music for the restored version of the 1921 film Les Trois Mousquetaires, an adaptation of the great French classic by Alexandre Dumas. Following this experience, he produced a live performance designed for children, entitled Les Trois Mousquetaires font du Cinéma, a production mixing theatre, cinema and musical theatre.^[9]

Leading large projects

Casadesus gained some leadership among French composers, which led him to found in 2002 the French association of composers, Union des Compositeurs de Musiques de Films (UCMF). He spearheaded it until 2005, with an aim to promote and protect a profession in a changing environment.^[10] Now, he is UCMF's Honorary Chairman, along with Bernard Grimaldi. Casadesus then founded the production and publishing company Opus Millésime, and produced a film and a CD as a tribute to his cousin, the pianist and composer Robert Casadesus (1899-1972). In January 2004, he was nominated "Personality of the year" by the music magazine Musique Info Hebdo.

During the 2007 Cannes Film Festival, Casadesus' symphony Sept Mouvements de Vie, dedicated to the life and work of the photographer Étienne-Jules Marey, was played by the Orchestre Régional de Cannes Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur, conducted by Philippe Bender. Still inspired by Marey's chronophotographies, he wrote the missing movements of his symphony in 2008. The resulting « concert of images », using Marey's antique photos edited by director Sylvie-Jeanne Gander, was performed at the Dijon film festival, Rencontres cinématographiques de Dijon. This symphonical suite was published by Cezame Music Agency with the title Movements of Life, and a series of three films about the Marey project was released the following year.^[11] This project initiated a collaboration with the music label Cezame, run by Frédéric Leibovitz and Françoise Marchesseau, resulting in the publication of over 200 of his music tracks over the years.^[12]

Composing for documentary films

Casadesus entered a new phase of collaborations, with the composition of soundtracks for various documentary films in France, in particular for directors Christian Zerbib (En terre étrangère and Nos ancêtres les Gauloises), Michel Viotte (La guerre d'Hollywood and Jack London, une aventure américaine), and William Karel (Jusqu'au dernier : La destruction des Juifs d'Europe). This last project was inspired by the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp.^[13] For this project, he composed several orchestral scores to be played by the famous American clarinetist David Krakauer.

"Shouting the infinity and never hearing it. Shouting an intimate pain, in silence. Giving a chance to hope, even if it is slim. Translating an unspeakable feeling that neither words nor images can express. Keeping a low profile. This was I was after",^[14] Casadesus said when his work was published in the album, David Krakauer plays Greco Casadesus. His work with Krakauer was also followed by a show at the French radio studios, France Musique. Both the soundtrack for the three TV films produced for this documentary project, and the Krakauer album, were published by Cézame^[15]

Training the next generation

Casadesus was awarded the Henri Langlois Award for his career in 2012,^[16] and as a reference in the field of scoring, he is often requested to speak about the specificity of composing for images. "As a foundation for this complex mix between image and music, the composer has a tremendous power that is balanced by a potential and terrible sanction: as beautiful as the music he just wrote can be, if it doesn't fit the director's purpose, it will be discarded!" he says during his lectures, master-classes and training workshops.^[17]

One example of these training activities is the Music Score Lab ("Le laboratoire de musique de films"), which he created in 2013 along with Cristal Productions and the La Rochelle TV film festival (Festival de la fiction TV de La Rochelle). This yearly training allows selected composers to compose a soundtrack for a film sequence, and gives way to a small concert, with an orchestra playing in front of an audience the music composed by the trainees, synchronized with the images.^[18]

From 2013 to 2015, Casadesus has also been heading the Sacem's TV Commission (Commission de l'Audiovisuel).

Works

Casadesus has written hundreds of original scores for theatre, film, television, concerts and other stage performances. He also has ventured into film production.

Television and Film

From his friendship with Roger Boutry, conductor of the Symphonic Orchestra of the Republican Guard, appeared in 1984 an opportunity to compose for a TV series on the French gendarmerie. This first experience led to numerous TV projects for all French channels : SFP, TF1, A2, FR3, France 3, France 5. His film career includes a large diversity of genres, feature films, series, documentary films, as well as short films. His meeting with directors such as Bob Swaim, Etienne Perier, Serge Moati, Jérôme Diamant-Berger and others, have expanded his skills in film scoring.

He composed the first third movies of young French filmmaker Keyvan Sheikhalishahi, Vesper with Götz Otto, Nox with Matt Passmore and Brigitte Millar, and Divertimento, with Kellan Lutz, Torrey DeVitto, Ola Rapace, Götz Otto, Christian Hillborg and Ellie Heydon.

• 1984 - 1985 : L'homme au képi noir (TV series)
• 1984 : André Moleux, peintre, by Gérard Sergues
• 1985 : Maestro, by Serge Korber
• 1985 : Tant qu'il y aura des cerfs, by Laurent Charbonnier
• 1986 : Fred Connexion, by Serge Korber
• 1986 : Les conquérants de l'impossible : portrait de groupe, by Bernard Choquet and Bernard Dumont
• 1986 : Chinook, by Christian Zuccarelli
• 1987 : Cordée canine, by Christian Zuccarelli
• 1987 : Nuit d'enfer, by Philippe Guillaume
• 1988 - 1989 : Mystères et bulles de gomme, by Bernard Dumont (TV series)
• 1989 to 1994 : Intrigues, mésaventures, passion, côté cœur (TV series)
• 1990 : Appelez-moi Tonton, by Dominique Baron
• 1992 : La montée au pouvoir des femmes, by Ghislaine Guide
• 1992 : Cérémonie religieuse, by Bernard Dumont
• 1992 : Le passage du Nord-Ouest, by Bernard Dumont
• 1993 : Le poids du corps, by Christine François
• 1993 : Les dératisseurs, by Bernard Dumont
• 1993 : Meurtre à ciel ouvert, by Jean-Marc Seban
• 1994 : Meurtre à l'université, by Jean-Marc Seban
• 1995 : Le silence de Lesbos, by Ghislaine Guidez
• 1995 : Les louves, by Jean-Marc Seban
• 1995 : Un mort sur le pavé, by Jean-Marc Seban
• 1995 : Le Match de notre vie. by Gareth Davies
• 1996 : So It Is (If You Think So), by Luigi Pirandello
• 1996 : La Rumeur, by Étienne Périer
• 1996 : La passe-montagne, by Jean-Marc Seban
• 1997 : The Climb, by Bob Swaim
• 1998 : Babar, King of the elephants, by Raymond Jafelice
• 1998 : Les legs, by Bernard Dumont
• 1998 : Le dernier fils, by Étienne Périer
• 2000 : L'Enfant de la honte, by Claudio Tonetti
• 2000 : Que reste-t-il..., by Étienne Périer
• 2000 : La vie à plein temps, by Serge Moati
• 2001 : Jésus, by Serge Moati
• 2001 : Les Trois Mousquetaires, by Henri Diamant-Berger
• 2009 : En terre étrangère. by Christian Zerbib
• 2010 : Petit creux (série TV, 104 épisodes)
• 2011 à 2013 : Le quiz de Zack (TV series)
• 2011 : Nos ancêtres les Gauloises, by Christian Zerbib
• 2013 : La Guerre d'Hollywood, by Michel Viotte
• 2014 : Jusqu'au dernier, by William Karel
• 2015 : Ta Mère! by Touria Benzari
• 2016 : La face, by Marc Rivière
• 2017 : Vesper, by Keyvan Sheikhalishahi
• 2019: Nox by Keyvan Sheikhalishahi
• 2020: Divertimento, by Keyvan Sheikhalishahi