Émilie Simon

Emilie Simon has forged a singular, recognisable style at the crossroads of French and electronic pop with contemporary touches. Born on 17 July 1978 in Montpellier, France, she discovered music through her father's profession as a sound engineer and entered the Montpellier Conservatoire at the age of seven. After graduating with a DEA in musicology, she embraced her destiny, releasing her homonymous debut album in 2003, which immediately found its audience and won a Victoire de la Musique award in the Electronic Music Album category. Noticed by director Luc Jacquet, she composed the soundtrack for the Oscar-winning documentary film La Marche de l'Empereur (2005), which earned her another Victoire de la Musique award and a César nomination. After ice, water, and penguins, the artist turned to the plant world in 2006, drawing inspiration from this for her album Végétal, which was followed three years later by the organic sounds of The Big Machine (2009), recorded in New York, where the musician has made her home. 2011 saw the simultaneous release of the album Franky Knight, dedicated to her partner François Chevallier, who died in Greece of H1N1 influenza, and the film La Délicatesse by brothers Stéphane and David Foenkinos, for which it forms the soundtrack. A brighter, calmer album, Mue, followed in 2014. In 2019, Émilie Simon provided the soundtrack for the film The Jesus Rolls, by and starring John Turturro. Three years after the Mars on Earth EP (2020), the singer returned with an album bearing her initials, ES (2023), in which she performed the rearranged songs from her first album, twenty years on. This was followed by Phoenix (2023), an electronic musical storytelling project, and Polaris (2024), an album that reached number 74 in France on its release.