Augustin Viard

Augustin Viard (born 1984) is a French musician who plays the ondes Martenot, an electronic instrument developed in the 1920s.

His work includes performances with international symphonic orchestras, chamber music ensembles and solo concerts. His contributions as a player and composer are regularly aired on Radio France programmes, and his recordings include collaborations with Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Rob Simonsen, Evgueni Galperine and the soundtrack of several award-nominated movies such as Loveless, and owns a collection of authentic instruments made by Maurice Martenot.

Biography

Augustin Viard was born in Provence in 1984. He studied the ondes Martenot at the Conservatoire de Boulogne-Billancourt and at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris from which he graduated with a master's degree in 2013.

He played the ondes Martenot part of Ecuatorial by Edgard Varèse in Paris with the Ensemble Intercontemporain in 2012, under Susanna Mälkki. In 2015 he performed Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher by Arthur Honegger in Utrecht (Netherlands) with Het Promenade Orkest under Jos Vermunt. He has also given performances of this piece in Osnabrück (Germany) in 2017 with the Osnabrücker Symphonieorchester under Andreas Hotz, The same year, he performed the piece again with Marion Cotillard in the lead role, with the Orchestre National de Lille, conducted by Alexander Bloch, at the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest (Romania).

Viard also performs the major and demanding works of Olivier Messiaen, such as the Turangalîla-Symphonie, performed in 2023 in the United States , the opera Saint François d'Assise under the direction of Kent Nagano in 2024 and with the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Maxime Pascal in 2026, as well as Trois Petites Liturgies de la Présence Divine, led by Ingo Metzmacher the same year .

Film and audio recordings In 2014, he released his debut album Les nuages de Magellan in collaboration with Ensemble Volta. This included all the chamber music pieces for ondes Martenot composed by Tristan Murail.

Since 2016, French public radio station France Culture regularly commissions Viard to compose and perform original pieces for broadcast.

In 2017 he played Ondes Martenot on the award-winning soundtrack of the international film Loveless. and the César du meilleur film étranger (best foreign film) 2018. The composers Evgueni and Sacha Galperine won the Best Composer European Film Awards 2017.

In 2018, he composed the original music for the audio cinema film Le brasier Shelley with Warren Ellis, starring Gaspard Ulliel, Warren Ellis and Marianne Faithfull. This film was selected for the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma of Montréal competition 2018.

In 2019, he performed all the Ondes Martenot parts on Nick Cave's album Ghosteen. The album achieved number 4 in the main UK charts and reached top 10 positions in 15 European countries.

In 2020, Augustin Viard's ondes Martenot feature on Marianne Faithfull's The Lady of Shallot, in another collaboration with Nick Cave (Piano) and Warren Ellis (synthesiser and loops). The 11 minute long track is part of Faithfull's album She Walks in Beauty, which reached the Billboard 200 when released a few months later, peaking at number 51.

In 2021, Viard composed the original theme for Earwig, a full-length movie directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, which won the Special Jury Prize at the San Sebastian international film festival. Viard's score attracted rave international reviews, The Hollywood Reporter noting "a gorgeous minimalistic score", The Irish Times "Augustin Viard’s music (...) spreads brilliantly eerie glitch about the queasy action" and the Daily Telegraph calling the film "blessed by a gorgeous, otherworldly score by Augustin Viard, a specialist in the ondes Martenot."

In 2022, he appears as an ondes Martenot performer on the soundtrack of the highly successful Netflix film Blonde, a fiction based around the life of Marilyn Monroe.

In 2023, academy award winner Nicolas Becker asks Viard to perform ondes Martenot on the soundtrack of the American thriller Black Flies starring Sean Penn. The movie is officially selected for the 2023 Cannes Film Festival.

Notable performances Year Piece Orchestra Conductor Country 1 2012 « Ecuatorial » by Edgard Varèse Ensemble Intercontemporain Susanna Mälkki France 2 2015 « Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher » by Arthur Honegger Het Promenade Orkest Jos Vermunt Netherlands 3 2017 « Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher » by Arthur Honegger Osnabrücker Symphonieorchester Andreas Hotz Germany 4 2018 « Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher » by Arthur Honegger La Orquesta Fiarmónica de la UNAM Sylvain Gasançon Mexico 5 2019 « Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher » by Arthur Honegger Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra Alexander Liebreich Poland62019« Jeanne d’Arc au bûcher » by Arthur Honegger by Olivier MessiaenWarsaw Philharmonic orchestraIngo MetzmacherPologne112026"Saint François d'Assise" by Olivier MessiaenVienna Philharmonic OrchestraMaxime PascalAutriche

Main recordings

2014

CD release, Ensemble Volta « Les nuages de Magellan », Tristan Murail chamber music pieces for ondes Martenot, Recommended Records

Audio film, « Le brasier Shelley » by Céline Ters and Ludovic Chavarot, France Culture, Radio France

Audio film, « Dans la tête d'Ingmar Bergman » by Florence Colombani and Céline Ters, France Culture, Radio France

2019

CD release, "Rêveries" by Rob Simonsen, Sony Masterworks.

CD and Vinyl release, "Ghosteen" by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Bad Seed Ltd.

2020

CD and Vinyl release, "She Walks in Beauty" by Marianne Faithfull (with Warren Ellis), BMG.

2021

Movie soundtrack, Earwig, directed by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Wild Bunch international

Audio film, "La Japonaise", by Céline Ters and Patrick Boudet, France Culture, Radio France.

2022

CD and Vinyl release, Blonde, film soundtrack Lakeshore Records and Invada Records

2023

Movie soundtrack (performer), Black Flies, directed by Jean-Stéphane Sauvaire, music by Nicolas Becker & Quentin Sirjac, Open Road Films

Extra links Augustin Viard - Ondes Martenot Augustin Viard (ondes Martenot)