Olivier Alain

Olivier Georges Alain (3 August 1918 – 28 February 1994) was a French organist, pianist, musicologist and composer. Life Alain was born in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, near Paris, into a musical family. His father, Albert Alain (1880–1971) was an organist and composer, as was his elder brother Jehan Alain (1911–1940), and his younger sister, Marie-Claire (1926–2013), was herself a noted organist. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he received first prizes in composition (1951, class of Tony Aubin) and musical analysis (1950, class of Olivier Messiaen). In 1950, he became director of the conservatory in Saint-Germain-en-Laye, where he worked until 1964. From 1960 to 1974, he served as director of the École César Franck in Paris, and in 1976 founded the Conservatoire National de Région in Paris, whose director he was until 1985, and where he taught classes in musical analysis and chamber music. His notable students include composers Alain Gagnon. Alain’s catalog of musical compositions contains almost 170 compositions of various genres, most of which are still unpublished. He also published a book on harmony (Paris, 1965) and a monograph on Johann Sebastian Bach (Paris, 1970). His