Oswald d'Andréa

A versatile composer, from French chanson to illustrative music, Oswald d'Andréa is also known for his work for stage and screen. Born in Tunis on August 9, 1934, he won a first prize for piano in 1949, and a harmony prize the following year, before his family left Tunisia for France. Although he went on to study pharmacy, music imposed itself and the pianist divided his time between giving concerts, arranging and writing music. After becoming a score copyist, notably for Henri Salvador, he worked as a session or stage conductor for various artists and composers, including Georges Brassens, Boby Lapointe, Catherine Sauvage, Maurice Fanon and Henri Tachan. Admitted to the SACEM in 1959, he followed Jacques Canetti and his artists and recorded his first orchestral album dedicated to Brassens' repertoire, Chansons Sans Paroles (1963), for Philips, before composing an ode to the Olympic Games in Tokyo 64 Olympic Disc (Polydor, 1964). He went on to writelibrary music for the independent label Moshé-Naïm, then became musical director of the TEP (Théâtre de l'Est parisien), before his five-year collaboration with director Jérôme Savary, rewarded with a Molière for best musical show for their version of Cabaret in 1987. The public discovered him with the soundtracks to the films La Vie et rien d'autre (winner of a César in 1990), Un week-end sur deux (1990) and Capitaine Conan (1996), as well as music for television. Retired to École-Valentin near Besançon, Oswald d'Andréa published his autobiography L'Oreille en fièvre in 2002. He died on September 4, 2024 at the age of 90.

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