Emmanuel Holterbach

Emmanuel Holterbach is a French sound artist and composer of musique concrète. Holterbach focuses on performances, compositions and installations for which he coined the term “acousmagic”. His research is based on the exploration of the intense and spontaneous musicality of specific natural phenomena; therefore, his electroacoustic compositions are made using sounds captured in natural and industrial environments. He is inventor and builder of acoustic sound objects (see his duo Orbes on enharmonic glasses), machines for sound spatialization (called acousmotopographes) and mutant speakers. With Lionel Marchetti and Jérôme Noetinger, Holterbach is part of the new wave of composers and performers who have renewed the tradition of French musique concrète, expanding its spectrum of investigation. Since 2004 Holterbach is the curator of Eliane Radigue’s archives and one of the world’s leading experts on the work of the French composer, of whom he wrote the official biography for the INA-GRM editions, Paris. He “rediscovered” and exploited the work for feedback by Radigue, of which he has also edited publications for the labels Algha Marghen and Important Records.