Emmanuel Séjourné (born 16 July 1961) is a French composer and percussionist, and head of percussion at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg.
After studying classical piano, violin, music history, acoustics and musical analysis at the Conservatoire de Strasbourg, Séjourné continued his education there, and in 1976 entered the percussion class of Jean Batigne [fr], founder director of Les Percussions de Strasbourg.
[4] As a player, he is considered one of the most prominent mallet percussionists[5] and expanded vibraphone and marimba performance by introducing six-stick playing and the vibra-midi.
He regularly sits on the juries of international competitions and gives master classes in the major music academies in Europe, Asia and North America.
[10] As a member of the contemporary ensemble Accroche-Note since 1988, he has premièred more than one hundred works by composers including Donatoni, Dillon, Aperghis, Manoury, Fedele, Mash and Pesson.
[6] Séjourné began to compose around the time he became a faculty member at the conservatory, and focused increasingly on it while continuing to perform and teach.
In 2001, returning to his preference for a mixture of forms of expression, he composed Famim, a piece combining improvised, contemporary and popular music, commissioned and premiered by the jazz pianist Michael Borstslap and the Amsterdam Percussion Group.
The Luxemburger Wort wrote: "[The concerto] provides living proof of the tremendous growth of the percussion and the emergence of the process of creation in contemporary music ...".
His works are often included in orchestral repertoires, including the Nagoya Philharmonic, Osaka Philharmonic, Sinfonia Toronto, Croatian Radio Television Symphony, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, Lausanne Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra of Italian Switzerland, Camerata de Bourgogne, Bochum Symphoniker, Württemberg Chamber Orchestra Heilbronn, Orchestre d'Auvergne, Cannes, Nice, and Pau.