Michel Corriveau is a composer whose music is at once eclectic and highly inspired. He has distinguished himself in film, writing soundtracks for dramas (Le Survenant), thrillers (Le Dernier Tunnel) and comedies (Bon Cop, Bad Cop), as well as television, setting several successful series to music, including Answered by Fire, Les Lavigueur and The Phantom. With each of new project, Michel Corriveau succeeds in striking the right chord.
Born in the city of Grand-mère, Canada, Michel Corriveau was raised in a family where music reigned supreme. His grandfather, Philippe Filion, was a violinist and orchestra conductor, his mother a piano teacher. It was only fitting, therefore, that he undertook piano studies before embarking on a career as a professional musician in the 1980s. A keyboardist and arranger at the outset of this career, he served as an accompanist with groups and artists on stage and in the studio. In the area of orchestration or direction and production, numerous albums by artists from Quebec, Canada and abroad bear his trademark musical stamp.
Michel Corriveau owes his early compositions to the world of advertising, which, for the better part of ten years, gave him the opportunity to explore a broad spectrum of sounds, rhythms and styles. In total, he composed no less than 500 “30-second” jingles for national and international advertising campaigns, collecting a string of awards along the way, among them two Coqs d’or presented by the Publicité Club de Montréal.
In the mid-1990s, Corriveau renewed a time-honoured family tradition. Like his grandparents, who’d provided piano and violin accompaniment for silent films in the 1920s, the composer turned his attention to the big screen when director Érik Canuel invited him to create the music for Hemingway: A Portrait, a documentary that opened in IMAX theatres for the Alexander Petrov film The Old Man and the Sea. The experience would prove to be a revelation – for viewing audiences, who had a chance to discover an artist capable of heightening the power of words and images, and for Michel Corriveau, whose passions and wealth of experiences came together in one overriding art form.
Two American productions – including Rodney Gibbons’ Wilder – would follow, as would the score for Nez Rouge (2003), which won the “Coup de Chapeau”presented by the SACEM at the Semaine du Cinéma du Québec à Paris. Since then, Michel Corriveau has created the music for several feature-length films, alternating between the intimate atmosphere of art house and the symphonic breadth of blockbuster films. This impressive versatility and unique cinematographic signature have earned Corriveau several awards, nominations and distinctions.
NOMINATIONS / AWARDS
Gémeaux Awards
- Best Music For Mini-Séries
“Les Lavigueur” (2008)
Gemini Awards
- Best Original Music Score for a Program or Mini-Series
“Answered by Fire” (2006)
Genie Awards
- Best Achievement in Music – Original Song
“Le Survenant”/”The Outlander”( 2005)
shared with Sylvain Cossette / Robert Marchand
- Best Achievement in Music, Original Score
“Le Dernier Tunnel” (2004)
Jutra Awards
-Best Music Score
“Le Dernier Tunnel”(2004)
-Best Music Score
“Bon Cop Bad Cop” (2007)
Awards
Socan
-Domestic feature film music Award
Bon Cop Bad Cop (2007)
-Socan National Film Music Award
(2007)
-“Coup de Chapeau de la SACEM”
zFestival du Cinéma Québécois à Paris
Special Salute to the music for the movie;
“Nez Rouge(2002)”
“Coq d’or”
Publicité Club De Montréal
-Best Music for TV commercial /Coca Cola
“Coke Card” (2001) shared with Robert Marchand
-Best Music for TV commercial/ Historia Channel
Kennedey/WTC/Challenger (2004)