The Paris-born artist reinvented the synthesizer through meditative and feedback-drenched sonic explorations
The French composer and musique concrète pioneer Éliane Radigue has died at the age of 94.
“It is with immense sadness that we learn of the passing of Éliane Radigue at the age of 94,” the Paris-based experimental music center INA GRM posted on Instagram. “A major figure in musical creation has left us.”
Born in Paris in 1932, Radigue learned piano as a child, but hearing the electroacoustic compositions of musique concrète godfather Pierre Schaeffer on the radio in the early 1950s unlocked something new, setting the course for her own studies in sound. After meeting Schaeffer by chance in the French capital, she worked an assistant for the composer.
“I was just cutting, splicing and editing tape,” she told the Guardian in a 2011 interview. “Of course, at that time the universe of electronic music was totally male, but I was pleased to do anything they asked of me. I was there to learn, and I was learning by doing, like an apprentice. It wasn’t really electronic music I was studying. The studio was against electronic music in favour of ‘concrete’ music: a simple idea of taking real sounds and manipulating them by cutting, splicing, editing, slowing down and so on.”
