Jean-Paul Dessy is director of the Belgian creative music ensemble Musiques Nouvelles. He has directed over one hundred world premieres of contemporary music, exploring the plurality of sound worlds on the borders of the profane and the sacred. In 2010, he directed the Paris premiere of Philippe Boesmans' opera Julie.
J-P Dessy has recorded more than fifty CDs of contemporary classical music, receiving numerous awards (Le Choc du Monde de la Musique, Classica, five stars from BBC Magazine...). He has also composed symphonic music, chamber music, electronic music and an opera, Kilda, l'île des hommes- oiseaux, which he conducted at the opening of the Edinburgh Festival in 2009. His work l'ombre du son was awarded the Paul Gilson prize by the Radios Publiques de Langue Française.
In parallel, JP Dessy has composed numerous scores for directors such as Jacques Lasalle, Denis Marleau, Anne-Laure Liégeois, David Géry, Lorent Wanson, Frédéric Dussenne... For choreographers such as Frédéric Flamand or Nicole Mossoux. For films and fashion shows by fashion designer Hussein Chalayan, and for Bartabas' Sunrises.
His universe is rooted as much in his classical background as in the byways he has travelled extensively (rock, electro), here is an artist who does not deny the singing part of childhood: lurking refrains, obsession with an elusive memory that waltzes through us, the vibrancy of sound that nags, something haunts him that he translates by dint of slips and imprecations so that it ceases and never ceases to return.