Jean-Michel Jarre was born in Lyon on 24 August 1948. Young Jean-Michel grew up in a highly creative musical environment at home. His parents, Francette Pejot and Maurice Jarre, encouraged their son to learn music from an early age and many of Jean-Michel’s close relatives were professional musicians. His father, Maurice Jarre, was also a gifted composer who made a name for himself in the 1950’s writing the soundtrack for some of the most famous films of all time. (Maurice Jarre wrote the music for "Doctor Zhivago" and "Lawrence of Arabia", among many others). In 1953 Jean-Michel’s idyllic childhood was disrupted, however, by the sudden departure of his father, Maurice Jarre, who abandoned his family to begin a new life in America.

Meanwhile, back in Lyon, Jean-Michel seemed to be destined to follow in his father’s musical footsteps. Jean-Michel had been playing the piano since the age of 5 and the talented youngster would soon prove himself to be such a virtuoso that he gained a place at the prestigious Conservatoire de Paris. After receiving an excellent classical training at the Conservatoire, Jean-Michel went on to discover a whole new world of music when the rock'n'roll craze hit France in the early 60’s. Enthused by this exciting new sound, the teenager began playing with a number of local rock groups then moved on to performing with jazz outfits.

But the turning-point of Jean-Michel’s career came in 1968 when he discovered electronic music. Passionate about this new genre, Jean-Michel left the Conservatoire in 1968 to enroll at the GRM (Groupement de Recherche Musicale), a research centre offering courses in contemporary and experimental music. Jean-Michel soon went on to specialise in electro-acoustic music and soon proved himself to be a brilliant composer and musician in this new genre.

After gaining valuable experience at the GRM Jean-Michel Jarre began to devote an increasing amount of time and energy to his composition work. By the early 70’s he had already established a certain reputation for himself on the French music scene following the 1971 release of "La Cage", an album containing his very first electro-acoustic compositions. Later that same year the Paris Opera House would commission Jean-Michel Jarre to write the music for the ballet "AOR". The sight of Paris’s most prestigious ballet company dancing to innovative electro-acoustic sounds was certainly a first at the Paris Opera House !

Meanwhile, Jean-Michel Jarre continued to experiment with his own electronic compositions in private, while making a name for himself in the French music world writing film music and composing material for several well-known singers.

In 1972 Jean-Michel Jarre composed the music for Jean Chapot’s classic film "Les Granges brûlées" starring the renowned French actor Alain Delon. He also found time to go into the studio and record his second album, "Deserted Palace". Meanwhile, Jean-Michel’s songwriting career continued to go from strength to strength. In 1973 Jarre began writing for a variety of French stars, composing some of the most famous French hits of the 70’s. It was Jarre who was behind Christophe’s 1973 hits "Les Mots bleus" and "Senorita", and Françoise Hardy’s best-selling single "Que vas-tu faire?". In 1975 Jarre would score Gérard Lenorman a hit with "La fille que j'aime". He also helped Patrick Juvet rocket to fame during the disco craze in 1977 with his hit "Où sont les femmes?". Yet, in spite of this new-found success in his songwriting career, Jarre never abandoned his passion for electronic music and he would devote every moment of his spare time to his experimental music research.

Jarre's dedication soon paid off. In August 1976 Jean-Michel Jarre went into the studio to record his legendary concept album "Oxygène". This innovative electronic album went on to become a phenomenal hit on the international music scene. And, shortly after its release in November, the album’s title track "Oxygène" soared to the top of the charts around the world. "Oxygène" would not only become one of the best-selling French musical exports of all time, it would also transform Jean-Michel Jarre from a rather obscure experimental musician into a huge international star. (The album would also win the prestigious "Grand Prix du Disque de l'Académie Charles Cros").

1976 also proved to be a memorable year in Jean-Michel’s personal life, for his first child, Emilie, was born shortly after the release of "Oxygène".

Two years later Jean-Michel Jarre was back at work in the studio putting the finishing touches to a new album, entitled "Equinoxe". This new instrumental album, inspired by underwater sea life, would confirm Jean-Michel Jarre as one of the top stars on the French music scene. Meanwhile, Jarre continued to compose for the cinema, writing the music for Peter Fleischmann’s film "La Maladie de Hambourg" in 1978.

On 7 October 1978 Jean-Michel would marry English actress Charlotte Rampling and later that same year their son, David, was born.

On 14 July 1979 Jean-Michel Jarre organised a spectacular concert at the Place de la Concorde in Paris. His gigantic sound-and-light extravaganza attracted a phenomenal crowd, over 1 million people flocking to watch Jarre perform. Later that year the French musician’s name would be inscribed in the Guinness Book of Records for having assembled the largest concert audience ever! Jean-Michel’s mega-concert at the Place de la Concorde was to be the first in a series of increasingly spectacular shows which the French musician would perform all over the world in the course of the next 20 years.

By this point in his career Jean-Michel Jarre’s music was known all over the world and, accordingly, the Sacem (the French Association of Songwriters and Composers) would also honour him that year, presenting Jarre with their prestigious Gold Medal for the outstanding contribution he had made to exporting French culture around the world.

Two years later the indefatigable Jean-Michel was back in the studio once again, working on his third album. "Les Chants magnétiques" was released to general critical acclaim in June 1981.

In October 1981 Jean-Michel Jarre scored another first, flying out to China to play a series of five concerts. Jarre’s visit to China was hailed as a major event in the music world, for no Western musician had been allowed to perform in China since the death of Chairman Mao. Jarre had spent over two years trying to persuade the Chinese authorities to let him play in their country and they had finally relented.

Yet no-one, least of all Jarre, could have imagined the phenomenal success of his concerts in Beijing and Shanghai. Chinese fans went absolutely wild for the French musician’s electronic sound and the Chinese authorities, who had once considered refusing Jarre a visa, ended up making him an honorary member of the Beijing Conservatoire.

Jarre’s extraordinary success in China (which continues to this day) resulted in a new double album entitled "Les Concerts en Chine". This album, released in 1982, captures the amazing ambience of Jarre’s mega-concerts in Beijing and Shanghai.

In 1983 Jean-Michel Jarre proved his innovative spirit once again, recording a new album entitled "Musiques pour supermarché". Only one copy of the album was pressed and the master copy of the album was destroyed. The sole copy of "Musiques pour supermarché" was then sold at auction to the highest bidder. The money raised by this extraordinary gesture was donated to a fund for young up-and-coming French musicians.

In November 1983, Jarre’s record company decided it was time for a major retrospective of the synthesizer wizard’s work and they released a selection of his greatest hits on a compilation album called "The Essential".

Meanwhile, Jarre had returned to the studio to begin work on his fourth album. "Zoolook". Released exactly a year after the Greatest Hits compilation, Jarre's fourth album proved an enormous critical and commercial success. The French press showered "Zoolook" with rave reviews and Jarre received a number of major French music awards including the "Victoire de la Musique" for Best Instrumental Album of the Year. He also won the prestigious "Grand Prix du Disque de l'Académie Charles Cros" for a second time.

While still possessing the inimitable Jarre touch, this fourth album was extremely different from his earlier works. "Zoolook" was basically a mix of sounds and voices that Jarre had recorded in the course of his international trips and then worked into a kind of vocal patchwork, fusing language and dialects from the four corners of the world.

In 1986 Jean-Michel Jarre staged another of his legendary mega-concerts, this time in Houston, Texas. In fact the American state was celebrating two major events that year, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the creation of the state of Texas and the 25th anniversary of N.A.S.A. (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). The local authorities were organising a series of spectacular ceremonies to mark the occasion and they chose to invite the French musician to perform one of his famous sound-and-light extravaganzas.

Thus it was that on 5 April 1986 Jean-Michel Jarre appeared on a gigantic stage erected in the centre of Houston. Lit by a spectacular laser display with an array of brightly-coloured fireworks exploding above his head, Jarre launched into a rendition of his greatest hits, while behind him a series of surreal images were projected onto a giant 120x65 metre screen. The crowd, made up of over 1 and a half million American fans, went wild as the strains of "Oxygène" floated out through the electric blue laser beams.

Six moths later, on 5 October 1986, Jean-Michel Jarre was invited to create another spectacular show in his hometown to celebrate Pope Jean-Paul II’s visit to Lyon. While Jarre’s French show was not quite on the same scale as the mega-concert he organised in Houston, it still attracted over 800,000 French fans. The Lyon concert found Jarre experimenting with a more classical symphonic style, mixing his electronic keyboards with harp solos and beautiful vocal melodies provided by a full choir.

At the end of this hectic year, Jarre returned to the studio to record a new album entitled "Rendez-vous". Inspired by his recent performance in Lyon, Jarre created a new style on this album, fusing electronic machine music with live human choirs. Jarre dedicated the album to the American astronaut Ron Mc Nair who had died earlier that year. (Mc Nair had been going to make a special contribution to the album, recording a saxophone solo in space but he was blown up in the tragic Challenger shuttle disaster on 28 January). French critics would once again hail Jean-Michel’s new album as an absolute masterpiece and "Rendez-vous" soon won Jarre another "Victoire de la Musique" award (as the Best Instrumental Album of 1986).

1987 saw the release of Jean-Michel Jarre’s new live album, "Houston-Lyon/Villes en concert" (recorded during his French and American concerts of the previous year). To coincide with the release of the new album, Jarre’s record company released a special boxed set of his albums to mark the 10th year of his recording career. A biography of Jarre would also be published later that year. Jarre’s hometown would also pay tribute to the world-famous musician, giving him the keys to the city of Lyon.

In spite of his international status, Jean-Michel Jarre continued to live quietly in France, spending busy afternoons locked away in his studio experimenting with new synthesizer sounds. Jarre displayed an insatiable curiosity for discovering new musical genres, fusing the most ancient traditional music with his futuristic electronic sounds. In 1988 Jarre would return to the studio to record a new album, entitled "Révolution". With its innovative mix of synthesizers, traditional ethnic instruments and Muslim chants, "Révolution" was highly reminiscent of Jarre’s 1984 album "Zoolook".

Shortly after the release of "Révolution", Jean-Michel Jarre began getting together ideas for a new sound-and-light extravaganza which he performed in London’s Docklands on 8 and 9 October 1988. Perched in front of a giant video screen, his silhouette lit up by a stunning laser show, Jarre defied torrential rain and near gale-force winds to perform two spectacular mega-concerts to a gigantic audience (which included Diana, Princess of Wales, in the front row).

Excerpts from these two extraordinary concerts were featured on a new live album, "Jarre Live", which was released the following year.

1989, the year in which France celebrated the Bicentenary of the Revolution, provided an ideal occasion for one of Jean-Michel Jarre’s spectacular shows. Jarre was supposed to perform a mega-concert to mark the event but, unfortunately, a number of technical difficulties cropped up and he was unable to stage his mammoth show. Jarre fans were not disappointed for long, however, as their idol staged a special concert later that year to mark the centenary of the Eiffel Tower.

In 1990 Jean-Michel experimented with a complete change of musical direction, flying off to the Caribbean to record his new album in Trinidad. "En attendant Cousteau" was dedicated to the famous French underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau. Infused with the ambience of Trinidad’s frenetic carnival season, the album was also heavily inspired by the local musicians’ melodic steel drums.

On his return to Paris Jarre set about organising another spectacular mega-concert. This new sound-light-and-synthesizer extravaganza was held on 14 July 1990 under Paris’s gigantic new Arche de la Défense (constructed on the outskirts of the city in line with the famous Arche de Triomphe). Jarre’s new mega-concert beat all his previous records, drawing crowds of over 2 million fans who spread out in a 2-kilometre radius around the Grande Arche. Jean-Michel Jarre would perform the concert of a lifetime, mixing Arab rhythms and Caribbean steel drums with his trademark electronic sound.

Following the release of a new compilation album, "Images", in 1991 Jarre began working on a new stage show which he performed at the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games held in Albertville, France, in 1992. After this concert Jarre flew out to Africa for the first time to perform three concerts linked to the inauguration of a new hotel complex.

In May 1993 UNESCO appointed Jean-Michel Jarre as its Ambassador of Goodwill. Jarre’s international star status and the magnetic appeal which drew millions of fans to each of his concerts made him the ideal person for this role.

Following the release of his next album, "Chronologie", Jean-Michel Jarre set off on his extensive European tour. This tour, which would last from July right through until October of 93, included dates in 15 different towns. Choosing the most unusual sites for his mammoth sound-and-light shows, Jarre travelled across Europe attracting huge crowds wherever he performed. Indeed, when Jarre kicked off the tour at the Mont Saint Michel in July 1993 a gigantic traffic jam blocked the roads for several miles in each direction.

The following year Jarre would go on to perform a grandiose concert in Hong Kong (on 11 March 1994) to mark the opening of the island’s new stadium. (A new live album, released in France on 14 November, would capture the extraordinary ambience of Jarre’s Hong Kong extravaganza).

In May 1994 Jean-Michel Jarre was awarded one of the most prestigious French honours when President Chirac made the musician a Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur for his outstanding contribution to the export of French culture.

The following year UNESCO asked Jean-Michel Jarre to perform a special series of concerts to mark the Year of Tolerance. Jarre kicked off this series of concerts with a spectacular show in Paris on 14 July, which not only marked the Year of Tolerance but also celebrated the 50th anniversary of UNESCO. Jarre organised a multi-cultural extravaganza beneath the Eiffel Tower, his concert featuring Algerian rai star Khaled and a variety of African musicians, as well as a full Arab orchestra and a group of giant puppets from the Caribbean. Jarre’s 1995 concert drew crowds of over 1 and a half million.

The following year, in conjunction with the French Ministry of Culture, Jean-Michel Jarre set up a special site on the Internet, calling it "Un Espace pour la Tolérance" (A Space for Tolerance). He also went back into the studio to begin work on his new album "Oxygène 7-13".

Twenty years after the phenomenal success of "Oxygène", Jarre returned to his first love, the synthesiser, paying a personal tribute to his fetish instrument and his musical mentor Pierre Schaeffer. Recorded in Jarre’s home studio with exactly the same material and production techniques as "Oxygène", the new opus "Oxygène 7-13" was conceived as a kind of sequel to Jarre’s legendary album. (According to Jarre the numbers 7 and 13 symbolise luck and good fortune).

On 9 May 1997 Jarre kicked off another extensive European tour. But this time the tour featured a totally different kind of concert, Jarre playing indoor concerts in established venues rather than creating his own sound-and-light extravaganzas at unusual outdoor locations.

But this change of style was only temporary. On 6 September 1997 Jean-Michel Jarre was invited to Moscow to stage one of his trademark mega-concerts to celebrate the 850th anniversary of the Russian city. Accompanied on stage by the dancers from the famous Bolshoi ballet and the legendary cellist Mistlav Rostropovitch, Jean-Michel gave the performance of a lifetime in Moscow, much to the delight of the 500,000-strong audience assembled around the stage. Fans who were unable to get tickets for the concert were not to be deterred either. More than 3 million people scrambled to the top of the surrounding hills to watch Jarre’s extraordinary sound-and-light show from a distance.

Following his phenomenally successful show in Moscow, Jarre returned to France, embarking upon another extensive tour of his home country in October of that year. One of the highlights of this recent tour was a memorable performance at the Zénith in Paris (on 16 October 1997), where Jarre brought the house down playing all his instruments live rather than performing with tapes of pre-recorded music. Fans went wild when Jarre appeared on stage with his futuristic laser harp and then produced a strange-looking electronic Russian instrument which dated back to the 1920’s.

In the spring of 98 Jarre returned to the recording studio to begin work on a new album entitled "Odyssey Through 0²". This highly innovative album, released in April of this year, proves Jean-Michel Jarre is a firm believer in moving with the times - "Odyssey Through 0²" works as both a normal audio CD and a CD-ROM! Jarre, a passionate fan of the new multi-media, created the CD-ROM part of his album in collaboration with French multi-media students and a specialist Belgian company. As for the audio part of Jarre's new CD, this features yet another remix of the French star's legendary hit "Oxygène".

In July '98 Jarre hit music headlines once again, organising another mega-concert to mark the end of World Cup celebrations in Paris. Following the victory of the French football team, 400,000 music fans turned out to party at Jarre's concert.

Jarre went on to surpass this concert the following year, masterminding a massive sound-and-light extravaganza to mark the end of the Millennium. Staged at the foot of the pyramids in Cairo on December 31^st 1999, Jarre's mega-show - entitled "Les douze rêves du soleil" (The Twelve Dreams of the Sun) - was on a truly grandiose scale, necessitating a budget of 9.5 million dollars! 50,000 music fans turned out to watch the extravaganza which involved over 1,000 singers, musicians and dancers. Egyptian-born 'world music' star Natacha Atlas took to the stage at one point and the country's president Hosni Mubarak was one of the special VIPs in the audience. Part of "The Twelve Dreams of the Sun" was also broadcast live on international television.

Jean-Michel Jarre was back in the music news at the beginning of 2000 with a new album entitled "Metamorphose". As the title suggests, the twelve tracks on the new album revolved around the theme of change and mutation and featured guest vocals by a host of international stars including Natacha Atlas, Sharon Corrs (from Irish band The Corrs) and avant-garde New York artist Laurie Anderson.

On 1 January 2001 Jarre headed out to Japan where he teamed up with local music star Tetsuya Komuro for a mega-concert on Okinawa Beach (entitled "2001 Rendez-Vous in Space").

In June 2001 J.M. Jarre carried off a new musical challenge, heading off to Athens to stage three mega-concerts at the Acropolis as part of Greece's "Cultural Olympiads". The money raised from ticket sales to Jarre's spectacular "Akropolis" shows was donated to a children's cancer charity.

Continuing to alternate between his hectic recording and live schedules, Jarre returned to the studio in January 2002 to begin work on a new album with the help of Francis Rimbert. Meanwhile, Jarre was also busy preparing a new sound-and-lights extravaganza (scheduled to hit the road in northern Europe in autumn 2002).

Exceptionally for an artist with a history of million-audience mega-shows and gigantic stadium concerts, Jarre played a mini-concert at the "Printemps de Bourges" festival in France in April 2002. In fact, the set - played in front of a "happy few" audience numbering no more than 100 - has to rank as the smallest show of Jarre's career! Performing on the electro fringes of Bourges, Jarre played a set featuring two new works and a series of experimental pieces reminiscent of his early work with GRM.

During that summer, the public was to discover Jean-Michel Jarre’s affair with French star Isabelle Adjani on the front page of a famous tabloid. Meanwhile, Jarre was already working on his forthcoming grand concert to take place in Allborg, Denmark on September 7th. Staged in the middle of a windmill landscape, the show tried to integrate the sounds produced by the mills to the Allborg symphonic orchestra’s music of the percussions played by Danish Safri musicians. About 40,000 people attended the event.

At the end of October, the Dreyfus record label brought out "Sessions 2000", an album featuring a series of previously unreleased tracks that Jarre had recorded--as one would write a diary--while touring around in 2002. The 6 tracks on the album are very faithful to Jarre’s Electro-Jazz style. Yet, because of a dispute regarding the licensing deal between Jarre and the record label, the album was hardly promoted at all. As a result, the press did not pay its release much attention.

Jean-Michel Jarre made a quiet comeback in September 2003 with "Geometry of Love", an album of electro-lounge music specially composed for a club for the Parisian jet-set, the VIP Room. In January 2004 there was a re-release of the original soundtrack for the French film by Jean Chapot, "Les granges Brûlées" (1973, with Alain Delon and Simone Signoret)composed by the musician in 1973. A testimony to his first steps in electronic music.

His break-up with Isabelle Adjani made the front pages of the French and foreign newspapers during the summer of 2004. The release in September of a new record will bring public attention back to his music. "Aero", which stands for "Anthology of Electronic Revisited Originals", is in fact an audio DVD which brings together about fifteen tracks, four of which are previously unpublished. The stroke of originality lies in the technology used: the record was entirely reconstructed in 5.1 surround sound, with the collaboration of Francis Rimbert, Patrick Pelamourgues and Joachim Garraud.

In a bid to stage the next big challenge of his career, Jean-Michel Jarre launched negotiations to organise a mega-concert in Beijing as part of the ‘Year of France’ in China. On 10 October 2005, Jarre took to the stage for a spectacular show in Beijing featuring over 300 musicians including the Beijing Symphony Orchestra and China’s National Traditional Music Orchestra.

In May 2006, Jean-Michel Jarre made the headlines again when he married French actress Anne Parillaud. On 26 August, he staged another mega-concert, this time in the Polish city of Gdansk, joining in celebrations of the 25th anniversary of the trade union Solidarity.

Continuing his work as a goodwill ambassador for Unesco, Jarre went on to take part in the "Water for Life" concert, designed to raise global awareness of water shortage. The concert was staged in Merzouga, in the Moroccan desert, on 16 December 2006.

In March 2007, Jarre re-emerged on the recording front with a new album entitled "Téo & Téa." Composed in his home studio in Bougival, in the Paris region, the songs on this new album were a very personal affair, best described perhaps as ‘autobiographical fragments from his life.’ After a period plagued by artistic doubts, a turbulent personal life and an emotional reunion with his father, Maurice Jarre, it was as if the composer wished to mark a new renaissance in his life. The album featured a mix of melancholy melodies and more danceable tracks as well as "Beautiful Agony", a song which included a guest appearance from his wife, Anne Parillaud.

Jean-Michel Jarre went on to perform a series of concerts in trendy nightclubs in Cannes during the International Film Festival 2007. Then, in September of that year, France’s King of Electronic Music returned to basics, re-recording "Oxygène", the seminal electro album that had catapulted him to fame thirty years earlier. On this occasion, Jarre delved into his archives and dragged out the old synthesizers he had used to record the original "Oxygène", dusting off his Moog Modulars, his Mellotrons, his ARP 2600 and his trusty VSC3. He transported the lot to Studio Alphacam in Antwerp (Belgium) where he began recording "Oxygène" 2007 - old-school style without the use of a single computer or time code! The process was captured live on camera in a single take.

The CD and DVD of "Oxygène" (which fans can watch in full 3D-vision thanks to the special glasses provided!) was released on 26 November 2007 on Jarre’s new label, EMI. The 2007 version of Jarre’s classic was kept as close to the original as possible, the only differences being a number of new arrangements and a handful of special bonus tracks from the time which had never been released before.

Following the release of "Oxygène", Jarre took his old 1970s synthesizers out live on stage, performing at the Théâtre Marigny, in Paris (12 - 26 December 2007).

December 2007