Cyrille Verdeaux

Cyrille Verdeaux, founding and sole continuous member of the French symphonic progressive ensemble Clearlight, has produced multiple solo recordings under his own name since the early 1980s. Shaped by Indian music, yoga, and meditation, many of those independent releases favor a new age aesthetic over his Clearlight output. The composer has issued two albums constructed around samples of ethnic groups facing extinction.

Born in Paris, France, on July 31, 1949, Verdeaux began coursework in composition, harmony, and piano at the French National Conservatory of Music in 1965. He captured first place in student composition for three straight years. During the 1968 student uprisings he was expelled for revolutionary activities. He then entered the Nice Conservatory, earned his master’s degree, returned to Paris, and formed Babylone with guitarist Christian Boule. In the early 1970s he assembled the progressive rock band Clearlight, which issued several albums with an ever-changing roster of musicians.

In the mid-1970s he composed and recorded the score for the film Visa de Censure # X, released as Delired Cameleon Family; the French Museum of Modern Art later acquired both the film and its soundtrack.

Verdeaux maintained Clearlight sessions through the rest of the 1970s until the death of his four-year-old son prompted travel to India, where study at various ashrams in music, yoga, and meditation left a lasting imprint. He arrived in the United States in 1980 and, while there, released Nocturne Digitales (1980), whose sounds were intended to quiet transient brainwaves of the listener, followed by Offrandes (1981). After another interval in India he issued Prophecy, Moebius, and Shambala. Working with producer, engineer, and manager Josh Goldstein, Verdeaux completed Flowers From Heaven, Piano for the Third Ear, and Journey to the Tantra Land in 1983. Material from those sessions became the Kundalini Opera (1984), issued only on cassette. Messenger of the Son appeared in 1985, combining some of his new age pieces with aggressive progressive rock. He returned to France in 1987 and began teaching music. Rhapsody for the Blue Planet followed in 1988. Two years later he released the first of two new albums under the Clearlight name. In 1999 he issued the ethnic electronic album Tribal Hybrid Concept with ethnological sample specialist Pascal Menestreyl. Ethnicolours, also released that year, used the same samples but added dance beats.