Yann Tiersen

Yann Pierre Tiersen (born 23 June 1970) is a French musician and composer from Brittany. His musical career is split between studio recordings, music collaborations, and film soundtracks songwriting. His music incorporates a large variety of classical and contemporary instruments, primarily the electric guitar, the piano, synthesisers, and the violin, but he also includes instruments such as the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, harpsichord, piano accordion, and even a typewriter. Tiersen is often mistaken for a soundtrack composer; he himself states that “I’m not a composer and I really don’t have a classical background,” but his real focus is on touring and recording studio albums, which are often used for film soundtracks. Tracks taken from his first three studio albums were used for the soundtrack of the 2001 French film Amélie. Biography and career The early years: 1970–1992 Tiersen was born in 1970 in Brest, in the department of Finistère, part of Brittany in northwestern France, into a French family of Belgian and Norwegian origins. He started learning to play the piano at the age of four, the violin at the age of six, and received classical training at several musical academi