Biography

Having followed formal studies of harmony and counterpoint at the Conservatoire de Paris, he was inspired to reinvent music at its core, with his own singular vision, deploying the technology and tools of his time. Between 1968 and 1972, after having worked with Pierre Schaeffer in the GRM (Group for Musical Research), he composes and produces a series of electronic music pieces; TheCage, Deserted Palace…

1971: He is the first composer to introduce electronic music into the sanctuary of the Paris Opera House, with the ballet AOR.

In 1972 he composes the original soundtrack for Jean Chapot’s Les Granges Brûlées starring Alain Delon and Simone Signoret and in 1978 Peter Fleischmann’s The Sickness of Hamburg.

‍During 1973-74 he composes and writes the lyrics for, and artistically produces, major French talent, Françoise Hardy, Gérard Lenorman and Christophe’s two key albums, Les Paradis Perdus and Les Mots Bleus. He also signs the staging and direction of Christophe’s two highly acclaimed concerts at the Olympia Theatre, in Paris.

1974-75 brings him to Los Angeles where he writes and produces two albums for PatrickJuvet, Mort ou Vif ( l’Enfant aux Cheveux Blancs , Faut pas rêver ) and Paris by Night ( Oùsont les femmes ?). He works with Herbie Hancock’s musicians and Ray Parker Junior.

In 1976, he hits the top of the charts worldwide with breakthrough album Oxygene (Prix del’Académie Charles Cros in France). This international success in French record historyremains unequalled today with sales in the region of 12 million.

The follow up, 1978’s Equinoxe, confirms Jarre’s credibility in the industry and a year laterhe also revolutionises the concert performance scene by creating what was to be the firstof his ongoing outdoor concert-events at Place de la Concorde in Paris to a live audienceof 1 million, earning his first entry in the Guinness Book of Records for the largest liveattendance.

1979 Peter Weir asks him to score Gallipoli, starring the debut actor Mel Gibson.

Jarre’s third album Magnetic Fields is released in 1981. That same year he becomes the first Western musician to be invited to perform in post-Mao Red China. His concerts in Peking and Shanghai, make history in the line of cultural events in the country and are shared by 500 million listeners and viewers on the People’s radio and television. A double LP, The Concerts in China, is released the following year, a musical souvenir of the Chinese adventure.

In 1983, Jarre provokes a stir by putting up for auction the unique singular copy of Music for Supermarkets at the Hotel Drouot Auction House in Paris and having the plates destroyed in presence of a bailiff. Jarre wanted to stress the value of music as an artistic creation as he foresaw its future devaluation in being aligned with mass consumer goods on shelves of supermarkets. The LP was for a long time one of the most sought-after collector’s items in history.

Zoolook is released in 1984. It is voted Instrumental Album of the Year in the US, Victoire de la Musique and Prix de l’Académie Charles Cros in France. Jarre reaches into a new artistic direction and works with Laurie Anderson, Adrian Belew and Marcus Miller. He uses a multitude of foreign language intonations that made the album one of the first to carry the sampling process at its artistic core.

In 1986, Jean-Michel Jarre stages a memorable state-of-the-art concert on the Houston skyline in the U.S. in collaboration with the City Hall and NASA. 1.3 million Americans camped for hours to share the event and Rendez-Vous, the new album. The live attendance in Houston gained Jarre his second entry in the Guinness Book of Records and People Magazine elected the European musician Person of the Year. To celebrate his homecoming to France a few months later, Jarre’s home city of Lyon invites him to perform the night of Pope John Paul II visit in October. His native town and region turned out en masse (1 million).

He contributes to movie Nine and a Half Weeks by Adrian Lyne starring Kim Basinger and Mickey Rourke.

1987 sees the release of Houston-Lyon, Cities in Concert, a live double album. Jean-Michel Jarre is awarded two Victoires de la Musique, Instrumental Album of the Year for Rendez-Vous and Concert of the Year for Houston.

In 1988 he releases Revolutions, one of the first encounters of electronic music and the Arab world of instruments and sounds.

This same year brings him to London’s Docklands where he stages two concerts in appalling weather conditions. 250,000 tickets sold like lightning as the British, being among his most fervent supporters from day one, would not miss this event, including close friend H.R.H. Princess Diana.

Jarre’s tenth album Waiting for Cousteau is released in 1990. The undersea world of the famous oceanographer, Jacques-Yves Cousteau, was the inspiration for this work. On July 14th, Jean-Michel Jarre creates and performs his most spectacular concert yet at Paris-La-Défense breaking his own live audience record by playing to a live crowd of a staggering 2.5 million.

Images, a compilation of his most popular themes, is released in 1991 and he stages in 1992 three outdoor concerts at Lost City in South Africa. Jean-Michel Jarre has also signed the music for a 1992 documentary-film Palawan, directed by Jacques-Yves Cousteau.

1993 sees the release of Chronologie (Victoire de la Musique 1994), a voyage through the mechanism and evolution of Time. Jean-Michel Jarre teams up with Swatch for his first ever tour: Europe in Concert. The sold-out tour brings him across sites from the Mont-Saint-Michel to Versailles Château and stadiums of the continent, from Wembley & Manchester Stadium, to Barcelona Olympic Stadium, Nep Stadium in Budapest… he is the sole French artist and one of the few internationals to play to sold-out audiences in these venues.

From Europe to Asia, in 1994 Jarre is invited to open the new stadium in Hong Kong and brings some of his Chinese musical souvenirs back to the local community. 1995: Jarre is back in Paris, this time at the foot of the Eiffel Tower for his concert for Tolerance under the high-patronage of UNESCO for which he is Ambassador for two years. Always faithful, his audience counts 1.2 million. The same year, he is decorated “Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur” by the French government.

In 1997 Jean-Michel Jarre releases Oxygene 7-13; more than a sequel to the earlier album, Jarre had the idea to situate his early inspiration in a new light, two decades later. The Oxygene Tour this same year sold-out 25 dates across Europe.

The City of Moscow invites Jarre to perform his largest ever concert as a statement of modernity for the people who have followed his music over the years, in difficult conditions. Nobody could have foreseen the impact of this invitation as the Russians came some 3.5 million-strong to show their welcome and share their joy, (Jarre’s third entry in the Guinness Book of Records). They were not disappointed, as Jean-Michel himself had reserved a sizeable surprise as he introduced his special guests, the astronauts from MIR on a live video link from space.

1998: Jarre collaborates with British group Apollo 440 to produce Rendez-vous 98, a single for the official World Cup football album. ITV, in the U.K., adopt the single for their broadcast of the competition. On July 14th, forty-eight hours after France’s world victory, Jean-Michel stages a concert at the Eiffel Tower in Paris to celebrate his nations’ win and is joined on-stage by Apollo 440 and Japan’s superstar, Tetsuya ‘TK’ Komuro, amongst Others.

On December 31st 1999, Jean-Michel Jarre is commissioned by the Egyptian government to create and perform a historic Millennium concert, from sunset to sunrise, at the foot of the Great Pyramids near Cairo. He succeeds, during this concert, in catalysing a realm of talent and instruments from different ages and civilisations; traditional Arabic, symphonic orchestra and electronic. An audience of 120,000 were privileged to share the event onsite, while over 2 billion followed the concert on world television and just over 2 million connected for an average of 35 minutes on the worldwide web.

2000 sees the release of Jean-Michel Jarre’s album Metamorphoses. This is Jarre’s first ‘vocal’ album in which he works with several female artists: Laurie Anderson, Natacha Atlas, Deirdre Dubois (Ekova) and Sharon Corr (The Corrs).

For the dawn of 2001, Jean-Michel Jarre teams up with his favourite science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke (2001 Space Odyssey) to create 2001 – Rendez-Vous in Space. The state-of-the-art musical and visual odyssey is staged in Okinawa, Japan, with Asian star Tetsuya Komuro “TK” on January 1st 2001 to mark the true arrival of the new Millennium. June, the same year, Jarre performs two exclusive concerts at the ancient theatre, Herodus Atticus Odeon, at the Acropolis in Athens. Commissioned by the Greek Ministry of Culture, he composes Akropolis, a theme for symphonic orchestra dedicated to the historical site for the future.

In 2001, Jarre composes the original soundtrack for Qui veut devenir une star ?, the first feature film of young debut director Patrice Pooyard.

During 2001, he was commissioned by Match Télévision to create the sound design of the cable channel, and by Bang & Olufsen for the visual and sound design of their B&O Concept Store on the Champs-Elysées in Paris.

On the 7th of September 2002, Jean-Michel Jarre chooses the north of the Kingdom of Denmark to celebrate the Wind and renewable energies in a once again totally singular site: a windmill farm near the city of Aalborg, where 50,000 paying audience attend. 2004 sees the release of the album “AERO” (CD + DVD). “AERO” is a first; the album is constructed in surround sound and Dolby digital 5.1. Like the milestones of Mono (1877) and Stereo (1958) that went before it, « AERO » is a unique 360° sound experience that marks a change in the way we listen to music.

October 2004, Jean-Michel Jarre performs a historical concert in Beijing at the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. An audience of over a billion watched the event live on Chinese TV, broadcast across four CCTV channels, NHK Japan and French national TV.

August 2005, Nobel Peace Prize winner, Lech Walesa, invites Jean-Michel Jarre to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of “Solidarnosc” in the shipyard of Gdansk in Poland in front of a paying audience of 170.000. Over 7 million TV viewers followed the concert Live on Polish national television, TVP1.

December 2006, in partnership with UNESCO, Jean-Michel Jarre conceived & performed a unique concert-event in Merzouga - Morocco, in the Sahara Desert, to promote the UN program “Water For Life” with local traditional and classical musicians.

December 2007: To celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the seminal album Oxygene, Jean-Michel Jarre took over Théâtre Marigny in Paris for 10 special intimate concerts, where he performed the entire masterpiece, with the help of three musicians and deploying the original mythical instruments; more than fifty legendary analogue synthesizers.

2008 saw Jean-Michel carry the Oxygene electro-acoustic theatrical project across Europe to some of the continent’s most prestigious theatres – London’s Royal Albert Hall, The Carré in Amsterdam, Kremlin Palace in Moscow, The Circus in Stockholm, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw…Jarre played sold-out to audiences that revelled in sharing this unique experience, up-close and personal.

‍

In 2009 Jarre embarks on his first ever arena tour inviting the audience to journey into his singular universe - to immerse themselves totally in his world of timeless music and vision. With this unique and brand-new super production he shares the energy of his macro concerts with the emotions of an arena experience. With the fusion of analogue synthesisers, cutting-edge digital technology, spectacular lasers design and lighting choreography, Jarre conceived a show that encapsulates his signature expression and talent for creating milestone events.

The 250-date tour, across 30 countries, sees Jarre sell-out some of the most important venues in Europe: The O2 arenas in London, Berlin, Dublin & Hamburg, Bercy in Paris, Olympia Halle Munich, Oslo’s Spektrum, Istanbul, Beirut, Santiago de Compostella...

He creates ‘Jarre Technologies’, an affordable & aesthetic high-tech hardware brand, with the aim to put the emotion and quality back into the audio & musical listening experience, which he deems has been perversely neglected in favour of convenience of data.

July 2011: HSH Prince Albert II of Monaco called upon Jean-Michel Jarre to celebrate his Royal Wedding by creating and performing a concert-event in the Principality which was largely broadcast on television & Internet worldwide to an estimated audience of 3 billion and #6 Twitter Trend.

June 6, 2013 at the World Creators Summit in Washington DC, Jarre is elected President of CISAC (the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), representing all artistic disciplines - music, cinema, visual arts, theatre and literature - the voice of over 3 million creators around the world.

‍

Sees Jarre composing and producing one of his most ambitious projects to date, ELECTRONICA 1 & ELECTRONICA 2. A double album comprising select collaborations with artists & legends spanning four decades of electronic music that have been and continue to be a source of inspiration for Jarre. From Moby to Air, Pete Townshend to M83, Julia Holter to Hans Zimmer, Robert de Naja (Massive Attack) to Gary Numan, The Orb to Tangerine Dream…. with a surprising collaboration with whistleblower Edward Snowden. Both albums were welcomed with critical acclaim.

Summer 2016, Jarre embarks on his Electronica World Tour with leg 1 seeing him perform 50 concerts across Europe, before heading to the USA and other continents in 2017.

Jarre releases OXYGENE 3, marking the 40th anniversary of his landmark debut album. This ultimate chapter sees him fulfilling a trilogy of albums with OXYGENE 3 containing seven newly composed and recorded pieces, consistently titled parts 14-20. His inspiration for the newly added parts on OXYGENE 3 was not to go back in time, but to add a sense of “now” to his iconic piece of work. Plunging into the environment of OXYGENE with its highly original dark, moody and at times quite upbeat musical language, Jarre references some of the music from his entire body of work on OXYGENE 3. It’s a state-of-the-art recording, embracing both classic and modern ways of music production.

Jarre produces the brand new sound-design for the national continuous news radio & TV in France : France Info.

Jarre is nominated for the Grammy Awards for ELECTRONICA 1 “The Time Machine” in best Dance / Electronic Album of 2016. He is also nominated in the same category for ELECTRONICA 2 “The Heart of Noise” in France’s Victoires de la Musique. Concerts are plentiful again this year with a very special event at The Dead Sea in Israel in April, a USA tour in May and more concerts & Festivals across Europe.

ELECTRONICA WORLD TOUR visits Latin America, with his first performances ever in Buenos Aires & Santiago de Chile in March, before heading back to North America for more concerts plus 2 Coachella Festival headline gigs, gaining rave reviews.

September 2018 sees the release of a personally curated double album celebrating 50 years of Jarre’s music. The Best Of called “Planet Jarre” is divided in four different worlds: Soundscapes, Themes, Sequences & Exploration and Early Works”. It also includes two brand new titles “Coachella Opening” and “Herbalizer”.

On the day of its release on September 14^th, Jarre announces the release of “Equinoxe Infinity” for November 16^th, the exact date the original Equinoxe album was released in 1979. 

Jarre performs the Green Concert in the City of Riyadh at the foot of the new King Abdullah Financial District on the occasion of the Kingdom’s 88th National Day for 50.000 people. It was the first concert in the region where women, men and families were allowed to gather together to share this once-in-a-lifetime experience. For the occasion, JMJ designed a bespoke kinetic laser installation over 12 buildings of the City’s new skyline. 

‍

Jean Michel Jarre created the musical identity for HSBC, showcasing his versatility as a composer. He also marked the release of his much-anticipated biography, "Melancolique Rodéo" (so far only released in French).

Jarre ventured into the world of technology with the EōN App on iOS, which featured his music and dynamic graphics created by an algorithm. This application contains morphing graphics created by an algorithm developed by Alexis André of Sony Computer Science Laboratories, and music generated from recorded material by Jarre.

The Expo Electro, an exhibition celebrating electronic music, made its way to various locations, including Paris and several international destinations and hosted a studio set up by Jean-Michel Jarre.

Jean-Michel Jarre participated in the Al’Ula Festival, at the UNESCO World Heritage Site and the historical old town of Al Ula in Saudi Arabia.

During the same year, Jarre hosted a groundbreaking event, the "Fête de la Musique Alone Together." This was the world's first VR concert, where Jarre's immersive music reached audiences through virtual reality.

Welcome To The Other Side, a groundbreaking livestream broadcast worldwide from a virtual Notre-Dame in Paris on New Years Eve gathered a record breaking audience of over 75 million viewers worldwide online and via TV in remembrance of the burnt and heavily damaged cathedral connecting the old, the current and the future.

He released the "AMAZONIA" album and the soundtrack for the "Amazonia" exhibition by  Sebastião and Lelia Salgado, drawing attention to environmental issues through his music. 

The "Fête de la Musique" event held at the Elysée Palace underscored his enduring presence in the French music scene. In recognition of his contributions, French President Emmanuel Macron awarded Jarre the title of Commander of the Legion of Honour.

‘OXYMORE’ a brand new studio album is the first commercial release of this scale which fully utilises multichannel and binaural sound (spatial 3D), with Jarre not just producing, but also composing and recording and mixed in audio 360 in the "Innovation" studios of Radio France.

The release of the "Oxymore" album was followed by a number of groundbreaking virtual reality concerts. Jarre's immersive live shows transported viewers to virtual worlds and showcased his innovative approach to his music performance. The "Hyper Weekend Festival" at Radio France, the Palais Brongniart, Ircam and at Cannes were some of the venues that hosted these unique VR experiences.

Reworks from the "Oxymore" album were released featuring contributions from artists such as Brian Eno, French 79, Martin Gore, and Deathpact,  Adiescar Chase, Nina Kraviz, Irene Dresel, NSDOS, and Armin van Buuren. The project is concluded with the reworks album "Oxymoreworks" on November 3rd.

Jarre is responsible for creating the sound design for Renault's new electronic cars set to be launched in 2024. 

"The Eye and I" a virtual reality experience made in collaboration with Taiwanese artist Hsing-Chien Huang is presented at Gevenva Film Festival where Jarre is also awarded with the Lifetime Achievement award. This immersive work invites participants on a journey through the evolution of surveillance, from religious supervision to today’s digital omnipresence and control. Through 12 cells set in a panopticon, visitors explore the influence of surveillance in art, family, politics, social organisation and technology. Jean-Michel Jarre’s exclusive music composition enhances the immersive experience, creating a singular collaborative work for the mind and senses.

On December 25th, Jarre performs an exclusive VR concert at the Hall of Mirrors in the Château de Versailles for a selected number of guests, online and for TV broadcast.

In May, Jarre performs a breathtaking free concert with AI visuals created by himself in Bratislava, with special guest Sir Brian May, opening the STARMUS Festival. The estimated crowd exceeds 100.000 spectators. The lasers used for the light show were visible from three countries (Slovakia, Hungary and Austria).

In October, Versailles 400 was released as a first and limited "phygital" edition, combining physical and digital formats on Vinyl and CD offering fans a unique fan experience via NFC tag.

On September 8, 2024, Jarre took the stage at the closing ceremony of the 2024 Summer Paralympics, delivering a memorable performance.

February 21st, Release of Zoolook (40th Anniversary) - a remastered version of the legendary album incl. new track Moon Machine.

Announcement of various live shows in Europe for summer 2025.