Pierre Henry

French composer Pierre Henry was born in Paris on 9 December 1927. From the age of fifteen he experimented with sounds produced by various objects, and developed a fascination for integrating noise into music. He studied with Nadia Boulanger, Olivier Messiaen and Félix Passerone.

From 1949 until 1958 he worked at Pierre Schaeffer's Club d'Essai studio at  Radiodiffusion Française, collaborating with Schaeffer on Symphonie pour un homme seul (1950). Two years later his music for the film Astrologie ou le miroir de la vie was the first musique concrète to appear in a commercial film. At Club d'Essai he produced scores for many films and ballets.

In 1960 he collaborated with Jean Baronnet to found Apsone-Cabasse Studio, France's first private electronic studio.

His work included Messe pour le temps présent, a ballet produced by collaborating with Maurice Béjart in 1967, many other ballets, and La Dixième Symphonie, a tribute to Beethoven.

Pierre Henry died on 5 July 2017 at St Joseph's Hospital in Paris, aged eighty-nine.