Olivier Greif

Olivier Greif, born in Paris on January 3, 1950 and died in Paris on May 13, 2000, was a French composer. Childhood and education Raised in a supportive environment (a neuropsychiatrist and pianist father, brothers who were graduates of École Polytechnique), Olivier Greif was deeply marked by the history of his parents, Polish Jews who had settled in France and were victims of Nazi persecution. The blue number on the arm of his father, a survivor of the Auschwitz camp, would later appear in his sonata Le Rêve du monde (The Dream of the World). A child prodigy, he began studying piano at the age of three and performed his first composition, Nausicaa (now lost), at a student recital of his piano teacher Lucette Descaves when he was nine years old. One year later, he entered the Paris Conservatory (now Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris, CNSM), where he received various medals before entering, at the age of fifteen, Tony Aubin’s composition class — bypassing the harmony, counterpoint, and fugue prizes. He received a Second Prize in piano in 1966 and a First Prize in composition and chamber music in 1967. After a third-cycle chamber music class with Jean Hubeau, Olivi