Claude Vivier was born in Montreal on 14 April 1948 (although this date has been disputed) to unknown parents. “Knowing that I had neither a mother nor a father left me in a wonderful dream world; I created my origins as I wished, and pretended that I spoke foreign languages. But alas, the reality that I faced on a daily basis was harsh and predatory.” Adopted in 1950, Vivier grew up in a modest setting. At nursery school, it was thought that he was deaf-mute; he only began conversing at the age of six. In 1964, following a period of spiritual exploration, he decided to join the priesthood and became a junior resident at the School of Saint Vincent de Paul, where he first came into contact with the organ and composed his first works, having experienced live music for the first time at a midnight mass. Expelled from the seminary due to “a lack of maturity,” a rejection that caused him considerable distress, he began studies at the Montreal Conservatory. He remained there until 1970, studying piano with Irving Heller and composition with Gilles Tremblay, with whom he extensively analysed the works of Varèse, leading to a self-declared “rebirth through music.” Fellow conservatory students Michel-Georges Brégent and Walter Boudreau were among his close friends.

His early works, including String Quartet (1968), Ojikawa (1968), in which he used a constructed language, Musique pour une liberté à bâtir (1968-1969), and Prolifération (1969) aroused considerable interest, and the Quebec Contemporary Music Society began programming his works in concerts. Thanks to a grant from the Canada Arts Council in 1971, he was able to study electro-acoustic music at the Institute of Sonology in Utrecht with Gottfried Michael Koenig, before spending time elsewhere in Europe, notably in Paris, where he studied with Paul Méfano in 1972, and Cologne, where he studied with Richard Toop, Hans Ulrich Humpert, and Karlheinz Stockhausen from 1972 to 1974. His time in Cologne, and a performance he witnessed of Stockhausen’s Stimmung, had a decisive influence on Vivier’s choral writing, leading him to declare that he had been “born for a third time,” this time through composition.

His works Musik für das Ende (1971), Désintégration (1972-1974), Chants (1973), O ! Kosmos (1973), Jesus erbarme dich (1973), and Lettura di Dante (1974) signalled a new fascination for composing for voice and for the use of homophony, in contrast to earlier “stucturalist” works which were more conceptual in nature. Upon returning to Montreal, he composed seven short pieces for duos or solo instruments for the Canadian Music Competition “Tremplin international,” as well as Liebesgedichte (1975) and Siddhartha (1976) for the National Youth Orchestra of Canada.

In 1976, he briefly taught at Ottowa University, and created a tape piece for an Ottowa National Arts Center adaptation of Büchner’s Woyzeck for puppets.

In 1976-1977, he travelled extensively in Asia, visiting Japan, Iran, Java and, most notably, Bali where spent three months; he was deeply impressed not only by the Gamelan tradition, but also by the manner in which art is integrated into daily life. At the end of this trip, he noted “it is abundantly clear to me that this trip was ultimately an inner journey.” His return to Canada saw a flurry of creative activity, with new works, such as Pulau Dewata (1977), Shiraz (1977), and Paramirabo (1978) that betray the influence of his time spent in the East; Journal (1977), which examines themes of childhood, love, death, and immortality; and the ballets Love Songs (1977) and Nanti Malam (1977), composed in collaboration with dancers from the Groupe de la Place Royale.

After a period as the representative of Quebec on the Board of Directors of the Candian Music Center, Vivier, along with Lorraine Vaillancourt, John Rea, and José Evangelista, founded les Événements du Neuf in 1978, an institution seeking to promote contemporary music in Montreal. His first opera, Kopernikus (1979), for which he also wrote the libretto, was premiered in 1980.

After having completed Orion (1979), Lonely Child (1980), Zipangu (1980), Prologue pour un Marco Polo (1981), a setting of a text authored by his friend, Paul Chamberland, and Wo bist du Licht (1981), Vivier, a devotee of cinema, collaborated with Daniel Dion and Philippe Poloni on the production of the video work, L’Homme de Pékin. He also made plans for an opera based upon the life of Tchaikovsky. In 1982, with the support of the Canada Arts Council, he moved to Paris, where he was brutally murdered, most likely on the night of the 7 or 8 March, 1983. His final work, Glaubst du an die Unsterblichkeit der Seele [Do you believe in the immortality of the soul?], for choir and five instuments, was left unfinished.