Michel Redolfi studied musicology at the University of Aix-Marseille following training in classical music at the Conservatoire de Marseille, where he took violin lessons. During the same period, he became interested in electroacoustic music, specializing in this domain and cofounding the Groupe de Musique Expérimentale de Marseille (GMEM) in 1969 with Marcel Frémiot, Georges Bœuf, Lucien Bertolina, Claude Colon, and Jacques Diennet.

In 1973, he moved to the United States for around fifteen years with his partner, flutist and translator Lanie Goodman. During this stay in America, he continued working in experimental music as a guest composer-researcher at the University of Wisconsin, the California Institute of the Arts, and Dartmouth College, where he worked alongside Jon Appleton, Sidney Alonson, and Cameron Jones on the development of the Synclavier, the first digital synthesizer. GMEM acquired an early model of the Synclavier, which is now kept at the Cité de la Musique museum in Paris.

In 1981, at the University of California San Diego, Redolfi launched his concept of underwater music: music played and listened to underwater. This was a major innovation in rethinking the space in which a concert can be held, as well as in playing technologies, since it involved submerging the audience and creating new underwater, mainly electroacoustic instruments. The first underwater concert was held in San Diego Bay in 1982 with the piece Sonic Waters.

On his return to France, Redolfi succeeded Jean-Étienne Marie as director of the International Center for Musical Creation (CIRM) and of the Musiques Actuelles Nice-Côte d’Azur (MANCA) festival. He took charge of MANCA’s revamp until 1998. It was under his impetus that this festival became the meeting point for alternative music and sound for image.

In 2002, Redolfi founded the multidisciplinary studio Audionaute, specialized in sound design for cultural spaces, multimedia scenography, and musical identity for public transport. Chief among his studio’s works are a series of jingles for trams in Brest and Nice, as well as permanent sound installations at the Nausicaá National Sea Center, Fondation Carmignac, Musée Matisse, and Fondation Maeght.

Redolfi’s creations often challenge the way in which we listen to music, broadening the notion of concert, whether in the air or underwater, through the scenography of a public space. The audience is immersed in sound through an acoustic medium, diffusion through a substance, or a spatialized route in a natural or urban space. Redolfi labels his creations experiential music.

As well as his purely electroacoustic pieces, which were mainly commissioned by the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM), his repertoire includes many mixed-media works for concert, dance, video art, and radiophonic creation.

His music has been programmed in national and international festivals such as the INA-GRM’s Cycle Acousmatique in Paris, Ars Electronica in Linz, the Venice Biennale, Musica in Strasbourg, Why Note in Dijon, Royal Hall Festival in London, Cal Arts Festival in Los Angeles, Gaudeamus in Amsterdam, and Sydney Festival, among others.

Throughout his career, he has collaborated with composers Pierre Henry, Jon Appleton, Bernard Parmegiani, Terry Riley, Jon Hassell, Jean Claude Risset, Christoph Harbonnier and his group Lightwave, and Luc Ferrari. Redolfi has also worked with actors Michael Lonsdale and Jean-Marc Barr, digital artists Miguel Chevalier and William Latham, plastic artists Sacha Sosno, Lyonel Kouro, and Ben, and painter Hervé Di Rosa.

Prizes and Distinctions

• Prize from the Fondation Jacques Rougerie – Institut de France, 2020
• Lion d’Or Music Nomination, Venice Biennale, 2006
• Ars Electronica Award in 1996 for Interactive Art and in 1994 for Computer Music
• Faust d’Or, 1994
• Médaille hommage de la Sacem, 1988
• Prize from the Fondation Futuriste Russolo-Pratella, 1978
• Chevalier in the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres