About author : DOPONT Irina

Irina Dopont was born in Clermont-Ferrand. In 1991, she entered the Conservatoire National Superieur de Musique in Paris where she attended classes by Maurice Bourgue, David Walter and Jean-Louis Capezzali. She obtained a First Chamber Music Prize in 1993 as well as a First Prize of Oboe in 1994. That same year, she was awarded the SACEM Prize at the European Chamber Music Competition as well as the First Prize at the 7th International Chamber Music Competition in collaboration with the Lutetia wood wind quintet. Afterwards, Irina Dopont and the Lutetia ensemble performed together in France and abroad from 1991 to 2002. After this quintet period, she gradually specialised in sonata music. In 1997, she was a finalist at the International Fernand Gillet Oboe Competition in Evanston, USA. Thanks to her National Oboe Teaching Diploma, she directed a musical show centered on the oboe in the field of "Jeunesses Musicales de France" from 1999 to 2001. As concerns world music and commercial music, she collaborated with Lluis Llach, Quilapayun, Minimo Garay, Jean-Pierre Como, Florent Pagny and played in the musical by Kamel Ouali," Le Roi Soleil" in 2006. As a free-lance musician, she worked for various orchestras such as Orchestre National de France, Orchestre Philarmonique de Radio France, Orchestre de Paris, Orchestre Poitou-Charentes, Orchestre de Picardie, Opéra de Lyon, Orchestre de Bretagne, Ensemble de Basse Normandie, Orchestre de Rouen, Orchestre de Chambre de Toulouse, Ensemble Court-Circuit, Orchestre des Pays de Savoie, Centre Lyrique d'Auvergne, Choeur Régional d'Auvergne. Irina Dopont is regularly invited by the Auvergne Chamber Orchestra as well as by the Royal Chamber Orchestra of Wallonia. She studied sociology at Paris 8 University and in 2004 she got a DEA in sociology with honours (a postgraduate diploma), targeted on "Ways of life and social policy". Writing is Irina Dopont's other artistic way of expression. In her first book, d----, a tribute to the deceased father (published by Editions La Bruyère, 2008), she displayed a straightforward style and a rebellious tone. In Les Joies Simples (Auto-Edition), she explored a graphic poetry, a happy but not naive ode to life daily delights. In Equation, the author conjured up via calligrams the expectation of the father, of the Other, lover or friend. In 2011, her first novel La deuxieme chance was published by Editions Musimot. It was followed in 2013 by Le Tableau, a tribute to Vincent van Gogh. In 2015, she had to stop her musical activity which inspired her a traveller's tale L'Interrompue (Editions Musimot). In Ô, a short text, she expressed the gloomy feelings triggered by the loss of a music instrument in a musician's life. In 2017, she seems to have recovered her slightly ironical approach in an alphabet primer dedicated to love, Au Commencement. In September 2018, after a three-years-and-a-half break, she is back to what she calls her beloved, her joy: her Oboe.