ERIC DANNENMULLER - BIOGRAPHY

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER !

        I was born six in April, 1959 at thirty past seven o'clock of the morning, with more than a month beforehand on the foreseen schedule. As I was not finished I prolonged my stay of several weeks fed by drip. The hospital, I returned to it some months later because of meningitis. The doctors then warned my parents that they should expect the worst. And it is true that during the first three - four years of my life, they were able to ask some questions. I made everything very late : walking, language, neatness, sociability, etc...

        I came to the piano completely accidentally, my parents not being musicians and hardly music lovers. When they settled down in Rives, small town at 30 km from Grenoble, a neighbor gave some classes the weekend to round off his month purposes. Mr. Louis WOUTERS, fair man, dared to say to my parents at the end of five years of lessons that he even was not enough qualified any more to take charge of me. But the virus was there. Instead of listening to Poppies, I cried by discovering SCHUMANN, LISZT, CHOPIN, whom I listened on a tape recorder to band - four listening hours continuously - hidden under my pillow from the decreed curfew. And so I decided to be a pianist.

        After two chess for the entrance to the conservatoire, it was nevertheless necessary to me to make a cross on this child's dream. One year as wage-earning student at the school of journalism of Strasbourg was not more convincing. Not easy to work at night as projectionist in a cinema of suburb and to be in shape for the classes in the morning !

        Failure in the exams, one year of military service, and after the big space... I thus built a project of journey sponsored by Fuji Film in 1980 : raise the Nile up to its source. I was not much farther than Khartum in Sudan, because there, I found the force and the will to repeat me " I want to be a pianist " as in my child's dreams.

        Madam TACCON, one of the women of my life, admits herself that she does not still know why she decided to give me my chance. Please, imagine, she formed André GOROG, Alexandre THARAUD and many others, and to see landing at her a big 25-year-old clumsy youth who declares to her : " I want to be a pianist ". This magnificent exceptional woman, teacher, pupil of Marguerite LONG, nevertheless relied on me. After many tears to forget, and the others else to learn to learn, she wore me until the price interconservatoire of the city of Paris. I remove now, having been ashamed there, a certain pride to have been in 31 years the dean of first prizes.

        After that, at the same time as a more and more importing professorial activity, I began giving concerts, composing, playing the chamber music, realizing this child's famous dream !

Eric DANNENMÜLLER