franoisbernard mche born april 4 1935 clermontferrand is a french composer of contemporary music born into a family of musicians he is a former student of mile passani and olivier messiaen and has also received a diploma in greek archaeology 1957 and a teaching certificate agrgation de lettres classiques 1958 he was a member of the groupe de recherches musicales in paris from 195863 he has composed electroacoustic orchestral chamber choral vocal and piano works he has been a member of the acadmie des beauxarts since 2002 and occupies the chair of the late iannis xenakismches music myth and nature or the dolphins of arion musique mythe nature ou les dauphins darion 1983 1992 isbn 3718653214 which as a whole argues for a return in composition to mythic thought includes a study of ornithomusicology using a technique of nicolas ruwets langage musique posie 1972 paradigmatic segmentation analysis shows that birdsongs are organized according to a repetitiontransformation principle one purpose of the book was to begin to speak of animal musics other than with the quotation marks and he is credited by dario martinelli with the creation of zoomusicologythe book also describes the conception and composition of pieces by mche where as a starting point he borrows a tonal model from reality which he then submits to a highly intricate process leading to abstraction this technique leads daniel durney to describe mche as one of the rare exponents of the naturalistic trend in music models often include human speech and bird song given the extensive use of birdsong made by messiaen mche avoided using birdsong recordings in his own work until 1969 naluan for ensemble and tape from 1974 systematically explores the model of birds while sopiana of 1980 pits recordings of malayan shamas icterine warblers and marsh warblers against the virtuosity of a live flute and piano recordings of birdsong insect sounds and other natural phenomena such as raindrops are integrated into le printemps du serpent for large percussion ensemble of 2001 earlier in mches composing career recording of a poem by the modern greek poet giorgos seferis read by mche himself formed the basis of the orchestral work la peau du silence 1962 and that of a text by paul luard for le son dune voix for small orchestra in 1964other major works include kassandra for large ensemble and tape which won the italia prize in 1977 eridan 1986 and moires 1994 both written for the arditti quartet kengir 1991 settings of ancient sumerian love poems and manuel de rsurrection 1998 setting texts from the egyptian book of the dead both written for the soprano franoise kubler and ensemble accroche note several of mches works from the 1980s onwards make use of the sampling keyboard notably lestuaire du temps 1993 for sampler and large orchestra