About author : OURGANDJIAN Raffi

Raffi Ourgandjian, born in Beirut in 1937, is of Armenian origin. He arrived in France at the age of 13, to enter the Paris Conservatoire. His masters in writing, analysis and composition were Elsa Barraine and Olivier Messiaen, of whom he was a privileged disciple and performer. In 1968, he gave the world premiere in Brussels of Messiaen's complete works for organ.

As for teaching, in addition to his own instrument, he devoted himself to analysis and composition, devising a unique course in rhythm and improvisation which was to become the basis of a pedagogy of imagination for contemporary creation. In Lyon, at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse, he created and directed the Département d'Ecriture between 1980 and 1988.                                                                                                                                             

Eastern music and philosophy, which he knows almost from the inside out, exert a decisive influence on his thought and language.