16 - Le Voyage immobile

2023 - Mediabook illustré
DLM éditions 3422 - Distribution Pollen.

Works for strings and accordion

This double CD covers a very broad creative period, from his first quartet, Les Heures défaites (1987), to the string trio Trois derviches (2021). It brings together a group of works for strings, which are joined, in the two books of L’Andalouse (2012), by the accordion. The accordion also features as soloist in Danse nocturne (2019). The album’s title, Le Voyage immobile (The Still Journey) – which is also the title of a cycle of works – refers to the composer’s insatiable taste for adventure and for voyaging in unfamiliar territory. Here, however, we are invited on an imaginary journey.

Un mystérieux chemin YouTube
You can listen to the music and read the score synchronized.

15 - O.P.A. MIA (My Tender Bid)

2017 - Mediabook + DVD
DLM éditions 2917 - Distribution Pollen.
This opera, premiered with sets by Enki Bilal, made quite an impression at the Avignon Festival in 1990. This handsome book features numerous illustrations along with the work's libretto in French and English. The DVD reproduces the performance given at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 11 November 1990. As a bonus, testimony by the production's principal participants: André Engel, Enki Bilal, Philippe Nahon, Denis Levaillant, Claudine Le Coz, Irina Dalle, Vincent Le Texier, and Marc Piera.

Watch an excerpt on YouTube:
What does it matter for me?

14 - L'Art de l'improvisation au piano

2015 - Book-DVD with illustrations and musical examples. In French.
DLM éditions 2815 - Distribution Pollen.
Commissioned by Ariam Ile de France, this book resumes the main part of the contents of the master class I gave to the piano teachers in Paris in 2011-2014. I filmed more than forty examples at the piano. Images by Nelson Castro.

On Youtube:
Extcerpt: Satie Première Gymnopédie

13 - Manhattan rhapsody

2014 - Works for and with saxophones - Jean-Michel Goury and Friends. In French and English.
DLM éditions 2714

“Composer Denis Levaillant has long been attached to saxophones (of all types), an attachment that has led him to do a new take on the world’s living music. In Jean-Michel Goury he found a virtuoso accomplice of the first order and bearer of the same jubilant effectiveness and the same desire of openness towards the result, i.e., the listener, both professing the same fervor for diversity. This CD proves it.“

Jean-Marie Londeix
Professeur honoraire du Conservatoire de Bordeaux

Choose the digital platform wich is well to you

Final

11/12 - Les Passagers du delta

2013 - Mediabook + 2 CD’s.In French and English.
DLM éditions 2613
«Trio ALP: A for Altschul (Barry Altschul, drums), L for Levaillant (Denis Levaillant, piano and composition), P pour Phillips (Barre Phillips, double bass). For the first time, this double album brings together a studio recording made at the Davout Studio in 1986 and a concert recorded live in 1989 on the occasion of the Banlieues Bleues Festival. This group, which performed from 1986 to 1993, was born from the desire of Denis Levaillant, a live-wire composer and free pianist, exceptional and unclassifiable. Without a strict 'jazzman' labelling - and that's all for the better! With such playing accomplices as fantastic improvisers Barre Phillips on double bass and Barry Altschul on drums.
Denis Levaillant found a magnificent stage name: 'The Passengers of the Delta'. The triangle and travel, two essential words that immediately impose themselves and resonate throughout all the music invented by these three artists of the instant and instinct. Listening to them again today, you tell yourself that time doesn't exist and that this three-way conversation has not aged in the slightest, having kept the same freshness of emotion and provoking the same power of surprises.”
Pascal Anquetil

 http://www.citizenjazz.com/Trio-ALP.html

This recording is again available in digital distribution: choose the platform that is best to you.

Around the blues

9/10 - Paysages de conte

2012 - Mediabook illustratred + 2 CD’s - DLM éditions 2512. In French and English.
Denis Levaillant present in a double CD included in a media-book richly illustrated and documented (David Chambard's paints, Gérard Condé's foreword, Bernard Boland's presentation) six works for orchestra and ensemble, with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Radio-France, the Orchestra of Picardy, the Orchestra of the national Opera of Paris and the Ensemble Intercontemporain. As underlines it Gérard Condé in his foreword: "What might have been mentioned first is the dramatic, almost cinematographic, quality of this music: a colorist, so that it might be better seen in imagination, Levaillant pushes fantasizing in sound as far as possible. He make the ear's eye travel”.

La Femme sur la Lune

Le Cortège du Roi bleu

8 - Eloge du musical

2012 - Essay, DLM 2412. In French.
A short but intense philosophical essay about music in general.

7 - Les Musiciens de Brême

A fairy tale of 45 mn, in French.
DLM éditions 2211
Denis Levaillant translated, adapted and put in music the famous tale of the brothers Grimm, for seven musicians and an actor. In French.

Choose your favorite digital platform to discover this new children’s music

L’Âne fidèle

6 - La Petite danseuse de Degas

Media-book illustrated + DVD, Arthaus
2010
This symphonic ballet, commissioned by the Paris national Opera for the choreography of Patrice Bart, was created with a big success at the Garnier Opera in 2003, with revivals in 2005 and 2010. On July 8th, 2010, it was broadcasted in more than fifty cinemas in Europe, and was broadcasted on France 2 Television March 1st, 2011 and Mezzo in June, 2011. This DVD resumes the show of 2010 and gives in bonus the testimonies of the main protagonists, Patrice Bart, Martine Kahane, Brigitte Lefèvre, Denis Levaillant.

Le Bal à l’Opéra

5 - L'Opéra de la Lune

2008 - Book-CD illustrated- Gallimard jeunesse. In French.
A fairy tale with orchestra, composed on the famous story by Jacques Prévert, commissioned by Radio-France for his young people programs.
"L'oeuvre a été distinguée par la Clef de Sol de RES MUSICA"

Du jour à la nuit

4 - O.P.A. MIA

2006 - Book-DVD Illustrated
In French and English
DLM éditions 2110
This opera created in the sets of Enki Bilal was warmly acclaimed at the Festival of Avignon in 1990. This beautiful book, abundantly illustrated, resumes in French and in English the notebook of the work. The DVD reproduces the representation of November 11th, 1990 at the Opéra Comique in Paris, and a bonus gives the testimonies of the participants to the show: André Engel, Enki Bilal, Philippe Nahon, Denis Levaillant, Claudine Le Coz, Irina Dalle, Vincent Le Texier, Marc Piéra.

Watch an excerpt on YouTube:
What does it matter for me?

3 - Le Piano

2010 - DLM éditions 2010. In French.
Distribution Pollen.
The first edition of this project, in 1986 by Lattès, had known a big success. Reshaped and enriched by a DVD, this book meets the expectations of all the pianists, that they are amateur or professionals, students or teachers. The DVD includes two movies: the one on the basic techniques of the piano game, which illustrates the corresponding part of the book; the other one resumes a recital given by Denis Levaillant in Paris, where he plays extracts of its own catalog of works for the piano: Douze Mouvements, Etudes Africaines, Un Petit Rien-du-tout, Images-Etudes, Jazz Faces.

"L'oeuvre a été distinguée par la Clef de Sol de RES MUSICA"

"For my part, amid the vast existing literature on the instrument, this book has the merit of giving a rigorous and well-informed, succinct historical approach and, simultaneously, of answering very diverse questions and interests. It is aimed not only at conservatory students but also at pedagogues, jazz musicians, popular musicians, and all piano lovers, whether amateurs or simple listeners."Luiz de Moura Castro, Professor at the Hart School of Music, University of Hartford, USA, and Head of the piano department at the Juan Pedro Carrero School of Music in Barcelona."
Luiz de Moura Castro

Watch an excerpt on YouTube:
Etude à la Kora

2 - L'improvisation musicale

Essay, Lattès, rééd. Actes Sud
1980, 1996. In French.
This book, published in 1980, has became an essential reference on the subject.

1 - Interdit d'antenne

Essay, Le Dernier terrain vague
1978. In French.
Collective work of the outgoing team of France Musique in 1976.

With contributions from Eric Dietlin, Didier Alluard, Louis Dandrel, Pierre Lattes, Jacques Drillon, Jean-Pierre Lentin, Jacques Erwan, Jean-Pierre Gillard.