Jean-Michel Jarre
Jarre at Coachella in 2018
Background information
Born	Jean-Michel André Jarre (1948-08-24) 24 August 1948 (age 77) Lyon, France
Genres	Ambient new-age electronic trance progressive rock[1] space music synth-pop techno
Occupations	Composer performer record producer
Instruments	Synthesizer piano organ laser harp accordion guitar bass guitar theremin keytar
Years active	1960–present
Labels	Disques Dreyfus BMG Sony Polydor PolyGram Epic SME Warner Bros. EMI
Spouses	Flore Guillard ​ ​ (m. 1975; div. 1977)​ Charlotte Rampling ​ ​ (m. 1978; div. 2002)​ Anne Parillaud ​ ​ (m. 2005; div. 2010)​ Gong Li ​ (m. 2019)​
Website	jeanmicheljarre.com
Parents	Francette Pejot Maurice Jarre
Signature

Jean-Michel André Jarre^{[note 1]} (French: [ʒɑ̃ miʃɛl ɑ̃dʁe ʒaʁ]; born 24 August 1948) is a French composer, performer and record producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient, and new-age genres, and is known for organising outdoor spectacles featuring his music, accompanied by vast laser displays, large projections and fireworks.

Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents and trained on the piano. From an early age, he was introduced to a variety of art forms, including street performers, jazz musicians and the artist Pierre Soulages. His musical style was perhaps most heavily influenced by Pierre Schaeffer, a pioneer of musique concrète at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales.

His first mainstream success was the 1976 album Oxygène. Recorded in a makeshift studio at his home, the album sold an estimated 18 million copies. Oxygène was followed in 1978 by Equinoxe, and in 1979, Jarre performed to a record-breaking audience of more than a million people at the Place de la Concorde, a record he has since broken three times. More albums followed, but his 1979 concert served as a blueprint for his future performances around the world. Several of his albums have been released to coincide with large-scale outdoor events.

As of 2004, Jarre had sold an estimated 80 million albums and singles.^[2] He was the first Western musician officially invited to perform in the People's Republic of China and held the world record for the largest-ever audience at an outdoor event for his Moscow concert on 6 September 1997, which was reputed to have been attended by about 3.5 million people.

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