Jérôme Combier is a composer and artistic director of Ensemble Cairn. He studied at the Conservatoire National de Paris, works regularly at Ircam and was a resident at Villa Medici between 2005 and 2006. His artistic practice has led him to work with a number of artists, including visual artist Raphaël Thierry (Vies silencieuses), video artist Pierre Nouvel and lighting designer Bertrand Couderc, visual artist Yannick Jacquet (Tokyo no oto) and choreographer Hervé Robbe (In extenso, Sollicitudes). He has been invited the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence (Austerlitz 2011), Festival d'Automne à Paris (Strands, 2024), the Venice Biennale, the Festival Musica (Memento-2023) and Manifeste-Ircam (Campo Santo 2017). In 2012, he wrote the opera Terre et cendres with Atiq Rahimi, commissioned by the Opéra de Lyon. Jérôme Combier gives masterclasses at the University of Berkeley, the conservatoires of Lugano, the Abbaye de Royaumont, Unesp University in Soa Paulo and McGill University in Montreal. His music is published by Lemoine and Verlag Neue Musik (Berlin) and recorded by Æon labels. Jérôme Combier was awarded the SACD's Nouveau Talents prize and a grant from the Koussevitzky Foundation, Library of Washington (USA). He has been appointed visiting teacher at the University of Graz for 2023 and is currently teaching at the University of Paris-8. 

"It is imperative today that artists themselves become aware of the issues at work in opera, both artistic issues (legacy, knowledge, inventiveness, renewal of forms) and societal issues (visibility, economy, education). Writing, directing and staging an opera also means being aware of all the mechanisms at work in it (artistic, production, societal, educational)."