Jean-Michel Jarre

French composer, performer and record producer

Photo by: Milan Csaplár · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

Born:August 24, 1948

Age:78

Zodiac Sign:Virgo

Born in:4th arrondissement of Lyon, France

Languages:French, English

Composer Keytarist Keyboardist Multi-instrumentalist Musician Recording Artist Record Producer

Signature

Links

Wikipedia Official Website IMDb Facebook X (Twitter)Instagram YouTube

Famous For

Movies & TV

Boys and GirlsMusique(s) électronique(s) : les bruitistes et leur descendance

Books

Machines: A History of Electronic Music

Songs & Albums

OxygèneÉquinoxeZoolookLes Chants magnétiquesWaiting for Cousteau

Awards

Commander of the Legion of Honour (2019)Stephen Hawking Medal For Science Communication (2017)Q Awards (2014)Steiger Award (2013)Officer of the Legion of Honour (2011)

Jean-Michel Jarre

French composer, performer and record producer

Biography

Jean-Michel André Jarre (French: [ʒɑ̃ miʃɛl ɑ̃dʁe ʒaʁ]; born 24 August 1948) is a French composer, performer and record producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient, and new-age genres, and is known for organising outdoor spectacles featuring his music, accompanied by vast laser displays, large projections and fireworks. Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents and trained on the piano. From an early age, he was introduced to a variety of art forms, including street performers, jazz musicians and the artist Pierre Soulages. His musical style was perhaps most heavily influenced by Pierre Schaeffer, a pioneer of musique concrète at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. His first mainstream success was the 1976 album Oxygène. Recorded in a makeshift studio at his home, the album sold an estimated 18 million copies. Oxygène was followed in 1978 by Equinoxe, and in 1979, Jarre performed to a record-breaking audience of more than a million people at the Place de la Concorde, a record he has since broken three times. More albums followed, but his 1979 concert served as a blueprint for his future performances around the world. Several of his albums have been released to coincide with large-scale outdoor events. As of 2004, Jarre had sold an estimated 80 million albums and singles. He was the first Western musician officially invited to perform in the People's Republic of China and held the world record for the largest-ever audience at an outdoor event for his Moscow concert on 6 September 1997, which was reputed to have been attended by about 3.5 million people.

This biography uses content from the Wikipedia article “Jean-Michel Jarre”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Quotes

“I think that you have to seriously have fun, or taking serious things in a light way and obviously, for me, before all, music is made of fun and pleasure and excitement.”

— Interviewed on the Danish Monitor radio programme 2005-11-30

Quotes sourced from the Wikiquote article "Jean-Michel Jarre", available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.

Photos

Jean-Michel Jarre playing on laserharp at a concert in Bratislava, 2016.

Jean-Michel Jarre plays on keys at a concert in Bratislava, 2016.

7 November 2019; Jean-Michel Jarre, Musician, Jean-Michel Jarre, on MusicNotes Stage during the final day of Web Summit 2019 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Web Summit via Sportsfile

7 November 2019; Jean-Michel Jarre, Musician, Jean-Michel Jarre, left with Rob Schwartz, Asia Bureau Chief, Billboard, on MusicNotes Stage during the final day of Web Summit 2019 at the Altice Arena in Lisbon, Portugal. Photo by David Fitzgerald/Web Summit via Sportsfile