Jean-Michel Jarre

Jean-Michel Jarre (b. Lyon, France, August 24, 1948) is world-renowned for his sound-and-light concerts, and brought electronic music to the masses with his albums Oxygène (1976) and Équinoxe (1977). Son of film composer Maurice Jarre, he grew up with his mother, while his father moved to the United States, and began learning to play the piano at the age of eight. He attended the Paris Conservatoire and played in several rock bands before turning to electronic music under the aegis of Pierre Schaeffer at the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM) in 1968. He experimented with synthesizers and recording techniques to create his first electroacoustic works, which led to the album La Cage (1970). He set to music the ballet Aor at the Paris Opera and composed various pieces before releasing the album Deserted Palaces and the film soundtrack Les Granges Brûlées (1973). Known as an experimental musician, Jean-Michel Jarre also wrote lyrics for Christophe, Françoise Hardy, Gérard Lenorman and Patrick Juvet in the mid-1970s, before the success of the instrumental albums Oxygène and Équinoxe and Les Chants Magnétiques (1976-1981), excerpts from which became radio hits. The following decade saw the musician play to impressive crowds in Beijing, Lyon and Houston, and release the albums Zoolook (1984), Rendez-Vous (1986), produced for NASA, and En Attendant Cousteau (1990). He continued to promote electronic music to the general public, with ambitious shows at La Défense (1990), at the foot of the pyramids at Teotihuacan (Mexico) (1991), at the opening of the Winter Olympics in Albertville (1992) and at Mont Saint-Michel (1993). Honored with a Victoire de la musique award and named Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur the same year (1994), then Officier (2011), he returned to composing with the suite Oxygène 7-13 (1997) and the albums Métamorphoses (2000), Aéro (2004) and Téo & Téa (2006). Further event-driven concerts follow before the release of the duet albums Electronica 1: The Time Machine (2015), Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise (2016) and the suites Oxygène 3 (2016) and Équinoxe Infinity (2018). In 2021, after a high-profile performance in Paris's Notre-Dame Cathedral on New Year's Eve, the ambient album Amazônia is released, followed by the tribute to Pierre Henry in Oxymore (2022), collaborations with Brian Eno and French 79 and remixes for Oxymoreworks (2023). His concert at the 400th anniversary celebrations of the Château de Versailles, featuring Tangerine Dream, Jeff Mills and Armin van Buuren, resulted in the album Versailles 400 Live (2024).

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