Jean Michel Jarre

Jean Michel Jarre (born August 24, 1948) is a French composer of electronic music. He is the son of Maurice Jarre, a composer of film music, who has written the scores to such films as Lawrence Of Arabia and Dr. Zhivago, among many others. His album Oxygene launched in 1976 was a big success worldwide, the song Oxygene Part IV becoming one of the best-known pieces of electronic music ever. His album Equinoxe also was a big success (especially Part V).

In October 1981, Jarre was the first Western pop-artist who was granted to give concerts in the People's Republic of China. One of these concerts took place near the Great Wall. Jarre is well-known for staging spectacular outdoor concerts of his music, which feature laser displays and fireworks, and three of which appeared in the Guinness Book of Records for their large audiences, often of several million.

In 1983 he created the album Musique pour supermarchés (Music for supermarkets), which had a print run of only a single copy. Jarre destroyed all the master records from his studio work, allowed a Luxembourg radio to broadcast the album once and auctioned it to raise money for French artists. People recorded the album using their tape recorders while it was broadcasted on the radio, so we can listen to that album, at a very poor quality though (the radio station was an AM station).

In 1986 NASA and the city of Houston asked him to do a concert to celebrate NASA's 25th anniversary and the city of Houston anniversary. During that concert, astronaut Ronald McNair was to play the saxophone part of Jarre's piece Rendez-Vous VI while in orbit on board the Space Shuttle Challenger. It was to have been the first piece of music recorded in space, for the album Rendez-Vous. After the Challenger disaster of January 28, 1986, the piece was recorded with a different saxophonist, retitled Ron's piece and the album dedicated to the seven Challenger astronauts. The Houston concert entered the Guinness Book of Records for the audience of over 1.5 million.

In 1999 he created a spectacular music and light show in the egyptian desert, near Giza. The show, called The 12 Dreams of the Sun, celebrated the new millennium and 5000 years of civilization in Egypt. It also offered a preview of the new Jarre album, Metamorphoses.

He was married to British actress and photographer Charlotte Rampling. In 2002 he became engaged to French actress Isabelle Adjani.

He is a UNESCO Goodwill Ambassador.

Discography

• La Cage/Erosmachine (1971, 7" single only)
• Deserted Palace (1972)
• Les Granges Brulées (1973)
• Oxygene (1976 in France, 1977 worldwide)
• Equinoxe (1978)