Jean-Étienne Marie

Jean-Étienne Marie (; 22 November 1917 – 25 December 1989) was a French composer of contemporary music. He is an important figure in the history and exploration of Microtonal music and electroacoustic. Biography Born in Pont-l’Évêque, Calvados, Marie studied at the Conservatoire de Paris with Simone Plé-Caussade. After World War II, he dedicated his life to music. He worked at the Radiodiffusion Française, where he was a specialist in broadcasting contemporary music festival. His students included author and composer Jeannine Richer. Marie was the disciple of Olivier Messiaen and of Darius Milhaud, but it is his meeting with microtonality pioneer Julián Carrillo that was crucial in his musical work. He created le CIRM in 1968 in Paris and set it to Nice in 1978. In 1979 he created the MANCA Festival (Musiques actuelles Nice Côte-d’Azur). Music He dedicated most of his work to microtonal and to mixed music. His works and his theorisation in microtonal music were significant in the modern knowledge of European microtonal music. Like Julian Carrillo, he explored the potential of microtonal scales, either widespread (1/4 tone, 1/3rd tone, 1/6tone) or less known (1/7th tone, 1/5th tone)