Eliane Radigue, singular figure in electronic music, has died at age 94

Eliane Radigue, Paris, October 26, 2010. VERGUETEHN/DALLE

Composer Eliane Radigue, a pioneer in electronic music, died in Paris on February 23, at the age of 94. Radigue was trained in studio composition by Pierre Schaeffer and later Pierre Henry – both founding fathers of musique concrète (an experimental technique of musical composition using recorded sounds as raw material). She then forged her own artistic path through encounters with leading figures of the American avant-garde of the 1960s, such as Terry Riley, known for minimalism, and Morton Subotnick, a synthesizer pioneer, before embarking on a highly personal exploration of the electronic soundscape.

Radigue was born in Paris on January 24, 1932, and showed an early interest in music, though this would not develop without obstacles. As a teenager attending a boarding school for girls, she was "cruelly" denied access to the music room by the headmistress on the grounds that she did not take piano lessons.

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