
Tanguedia - Hommage à Astor Piazzolla
Mandolin and guitar
Vladimir Cosma was born April 13th 1940 in Bucarest, Romania, into a family of musicians.
After first prizes in violin and composition at the National Conservatory of Bucharest, he arrived in Paris in 1963 and continued his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and worked with Nadia Boulanger. In addition to so-called “classical” music, he developed a passion very early for jazz, film music and all forms of popular music.
From 1964, he toured extensively around the world as a concert violinist and devoted himself more and more to composition. He wrote among others Three movements of summer for orchestra, Oblique for cello and string orchestra, Volpone for the Comédie Française, the Opera Fantomas...
In 1968, Yves Robert entrusted him with his first film music for Alexandre le Bienheureux. He has since composed five hundred scores for films and TV series :
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...), 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 the 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 Théâtre des 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 Gheorghiu in the title roles, as well as Jean-Philippe Lafont in the role of César.
In 2008 he composed the music for 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 of Beziers, of his cantata «1209», for soprano, narrator, children's choir and orchestra, written especially for the 8th centenary of the Sac de Béziers.
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 also appeared in many countries with major symphony orchestras and 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 memories entitled Vladimir Cosma – My Memories – From Dream to Reality was published by Plon in 2022.
Vladimir Cosma has received numerous awards: two Césars for the best movie score, for Diva in 1982 and Le Bal in 1984, the Golden Seven in both 1986 and 1991 for the best music scores for television, in 1982 the prize for the music for Diva in Moscow, the Phoenix Spa Festival prize in 2008, the Henri Langlois prize of the Cinémathèque Française in 2010, the Grand Prix du Disque en 1990, the Philip Award Prize at the festival in Warsaw, the Grand Prix Sacem for La Musique de Films in 1990 and 2003...
He also obtained numerous gold and platinum records all over the world (France, Germany, Japan, England, Switzerland, Belgium, Italy, Holland, Scandinavia...).
Vladimir Cosma is Officier 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 Bucharest. He also received the royal decoration Nihil Sine Deo awarded by King Michael 1er of Romania.
Vladimir Cosma was born April 13th 1940 in Bucarest, Romania, into a family of musicians.
After first prizes in violin and composition at the National Conservatory of Bucharest, he arrived in Paris in 1963 and continued his studies at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris and worked with Nadia Boulanger. In addition to so-called “classical” music, he developed a passion very early for jazz, film music and all forms of popular music.
From 1964, he toured...