Luc Ferrari

Lucien Ferrari (5 February 1929 – 22 August 2005) was a French composer and pioneer in musique concrète and electroacoustic music. He was a founding member of RTF’s Groupe de Recherches Musicales (GRMC), working alongside composers such as Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry. Biography Ferrari was born in Paris and was trained in music at a very young age. He studied the piano under Alfred Cortot, musical analysis under Olivier Messiaen, and composition under Arthur Honegger. His first works were freely atonal. A case of tuberculosis in his youth interrupted his career as a pianist. From then on, he mostly concentrated on musical composition. During this illness, he had the opportunity to become acquainted with the radio receiver, and with pioneers such as Schönberg, Berg, and Webern. In 1954, Ferrari went to the United States to meet Edgard Varèse, whose Déserts he had heard on the radio, and had impressed him. This seems to have had a great effect on him, with the tape part in Déserts serving as inspiration for Ferrari to use magnetic tape in his own music. In 1958, he co-founded the Groupe de Recherches Musicales with Pierre Schaeffer and François-Bernard Mâche. He taught in insti