Born in 1972 in Rouen, French composer, director, performer,  and visual artist. He studied composition with Guy Reibel,  Philippe Manoury, Brian Ferneyhough, Jonathan Harvey, Magnus Lindberg, and Tristan Murail. He also studied music analysis  and aesthetics, cello, conducting, harmony, and counterpoint;  from 1999 to 2002 he attended Jacques Roubaud’s seminars  on comparative poetics at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris. In 1995 he was admitted to the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse in Paris,  where he graduated in music analysis in 1999 and composition  in 2000. With the support of SACEM grants, he attended composition masterclasses in Szombathely with Brian Ferneyhough  and Marco Stroppa in 1996–97, and in 1997–98 he completed  the IRCAM Cursus in composition and computer music.

Sarhan is known for hybrid and deliberately ambiguous work that  crosses established boundaries between artistic disciplines. His  projects bring music into confrontation with stop-motion animation, performance, text, film, installation, and visual art practices;  he often writes the texts, creates the visual elements, directs, and  performs himself. In recent years he has gained international  recognition notably through his cooperation with South African  artist William Kentridge and his own stage works such as Lâchez  tout! He is particularly noted for music theatre and multimedia  forms in which instrumental music is combined with the performer’s voice, electronics, image, gesture, and staged situation.

Together with William Kentridge he created Telegrams from  the Nose, a project presented more than 30 times at major festivals and venues across Europe. Since 2008 he has directed his  own stage works. His output includes instrumental music, often  using the performer’s voice and electronics, as well as video  installations, films, books, collages, and stage works, including  The Last Lighthouse Keepers. Other particularly important works  include L’Nfer, a work for narrator and eight musicians based on  an autobiographical text by the composer, and Encyclopaedia,  a long-term multimedia project that uses collage, stop-motion  animation, music, and books to construct an alternative, fictionalscientific description of the world. In 2003 Sarhan composed  a chamber opera for the Festival d’Aix-en-Provence, and his first  monographic album was released by the French label Zig-Zag  Territoires. Sarhan refuses all awards and honours, because, as he  has stated, “music and art have nothing to do with this monkey  business.”

His works have been performed in more than 20 countries. He  has received commissions notably from Les Percussions de Strasbourg, Ensemble Modern, ensemble recherche, Donaueschinger  Musiktage, Ensemble intercontemporain, and Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. His music has been performed  by numerous soloists and ensembles, including Nicolas Dautricourt, Céline Frisch, Noémi Boutin, François Salque, Alexandre 

Tharaud, Dimitri Vassilakis, Samuel Favre, Vanessa Wagner,  Quatuor Diotima, Quatuor Béla, Ensemble Modern, ensemble  recherche, Ictus Ensemble, Ensemble intercontemporain, and  Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France. He was composerin-residence at the Arsenal in Metz and in Orléans; in the 2017/18  season he was artist-in-residence at Schlosstheater Moers, where  he wrote and directed four theatre performances and a film titled  The Suitcase.

Sarhan taught at IRCAM from 1998 to 2002 and at Marc Bloch  University in Strasbourg; he subsequently taught composition at  the University of Arts in Berlin and, as a guest lecturer, at the Carl  Maria von Weber High School of Music in Dresden. He is  the author of Introduction à l’histoire de la musique, published by  Flammarion, and the founder of the artistic collective CRWTH,  which has created and presented multimedia projects since 2000.  In 2016 he was a guest lecturer at the Summer Courses for New  Music in Darmstand, where he presented two new works: Commodity Music and Who Really Was Mario Bossi. Since the 2024/25  academic year he has been Professor of Composition at the Anton  Bruckner University in Linz. He lives in Vienna.

Selected works (since 2005): 35 chamber works entitled  Situations for 1‒4 performers (2008–20). 28 janvier 2005 for  baritone and piano (2005), Les Articulations de la Reine, puppet  theatre music to words by Bertrand Raynaud (2005), Five Pieces  for viola and orchestra (2005), Missing for guitar, piano, Stroh  violin, percussion, double bass and prerecorded sound (2006),  L’Enfer, un point de détail, evening event including installation,  music and spoken text (2006), Amitié for cello (2007), Testimony  for 19 musicians and electronics after Charles Reznikoff (2007),  The Name of the Song for string trio, electronics, Rhodes piano  and narrator (2007), Telegrams from the Nose, chamber opera for  five musicians and narrator, to words by Daniil Kharms (2008),  Music While, variations on Purcell’s Music for a While for soprano  and guitar (2006), Dibbuk for orchestra (2010), Petit Dibbuk for  small orchestra (2011), Home Work, theatre music (2011), A King,  Lear, theatre music to words by Jacques Roubaud after Shakespeare (2011), Lucy B for soprano / mezzo-soprano and string  quartet (2011), Here It Ended Even Further, two pieces for piano  (2011), Bon pied bel œil for flute, Rhodes piano and tape / computer / CD (2011), Talea for four percussionists (2011), Observations sur les ombres accidentelles et les murmures colorés for cello  and tape / computer / CD (2011), O piano for reciting pianist and  prerecorded sound (2012), Deluxe Coucou for violin or ensemble  (2008–13), I Don’t Belong to Your World for a speaking marimba  player (2010–13), Wandering Rocks for four electric guitars and  electronics (2013), Talea 2 for 11 musicians and electronics  (2015), La philosophie dans le boudoir, music theatre for six voices  (2015), Commodity Music, music theatre for four electric guitars  and 24 loudspeakers (2016), Talea 3 for five musicians (2017), One Shot Train, music theatre for five musicians (2017), Potence  à paratonnerre for ensemble (2017), Finger and Mouth for keyboard and video (2017), Nacht bis Acht, music theatre for children  (2019), Log Book, electroacoustic work / musical play (2019–),  The Right Ear, music theatre for six musicians and video (2020),  Les Murs meurent aussi, music theatre for United Instruments  of Lucilin, for performers, video and live ensemble (with Daniel  Agi, Julia Lwolwski and Maria Buzhor, 2024), Covaru for string  ensemble (2024), Analogies, music theatre for Zafraan Ensemble  with video, text, light and sound (2025).