Claude-Michel Schönberg

Composer Claude-Michel Schönberg is best known for the musical Les Misérables, and as a singer with the 1974 hit "Le Premier pas". Born in Vannes, Morbihan, on July 6, 1944, to a family of Hungarian descent, related to the composer Arnold Schönberg (1874-1951), he studied piano, which he played in the pop group Les Vénètes, of which he was also the lead singer. Hired as artistic director by the Pathé Marconi label, he worked with several artists and met lyricist Alain Boublil, who became his main collaborator in writing musicals. Together with Raymond Jeannot and Jean-Max Rivière, they wrote the first French "rock opera", La Révolution Française (1973), featuring Antoine, Alain Bashung, Martin Circus, Les Charlots, Jean-François Michaël, Jean Schultheis, Système Crapoutchik and a young backing singer named Daniel Balavoine. The success of the double album led to a show staged at the Palais des Sports and then at the Théâtre Mogador. The following year, Claude-Michel Schönberg records his first album, from which the homonymous sentimental ballad "Le Premier pas", produced by Franck Pourcel, is taken, selling several million copies and topping the charts. Several personal albums of songs followed, apart from the hit "La Tête en feu" for Mireille Mathieu, as well as an erotically charged recording, Harmonie du Couple (1983), set to disco music. Claude-Michel Schönberg, who also produced La Bande à Basile and the emblematic song "La Chenille " (1978), reunited with Alain Boublil for the musical Les Misérables, which has proved to be a great success since its creation in 1980, first on record with Rose Laurens, Michel Sardou, Michel Delpech, Salvatore Adamo and Mireille, then on stage the same year, an international hit revived in London in 1985 and brought to the big screen in 2012, winning three Oscars. The duo went on to produce the musicals Miss Saigon (1991), Martin Guerre (1996), The Pirate Queen (2006), Marguerite with Michel Legrand (2008) and Cleopatra (2011). For his part, the composer works with Quebec singer Martine Saint-Clair, creating the soundtrack for the film Le Caviar rouge (1985) and the music for the ballet Wuthering Heights (2004). In 2016, Claude-Michel Schönberg was promoted to the rank of Officier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

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