Florence Baschet was born in Paris in 1955 and studied music at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris and at the Conservatorio di Musica Santa Cecilia in Rome. She then returned to Paris to study musicology, harmony, and counterpoint. She became interested in new acoustic instruments, particularly the Cristal Baschet, an instrument she explored in multiple ways, from South Indian carnatic music to the jazz world to the possibilities for sound transformation offered by the field of electroacoustics.

She entered the Conservatoire of Lyon (CNSML) in 1988, where she worked with Philippe Manoury, studying composition and electroacoustic sound transformations. In 1991, with Nuraghe, she received a Diplôme National des Études Supérieures de Musique (she was unanimously awarded high honors by the jury, which included André Boucourechliev and Gilbert Amy). She continued her studies at the Centre Acanthes with Luigi Nono and with Elliott Carter.

In 1992, she participated in Cursus (the IRCAM’s composition and computer music course), during which she composed Alma-Luvia. Multiple commissions followed, including from the IRCAM for Spira Manes and Commandes d’État (commissions from the French Ministry of Culture), as well as from Ensemble l’Itinéraire for Sinopia and Aïponis. L’Itinéraire’s artistic director, composer Michael Levinas, is an active supporter of her work. Other notable pieces include Femmes for Radio France, Filastrocca for Festival MANCA, Bobok for the 2e2m ensemble and the GRM, and Trinacria, a commission for Musique Nouvelle en Liberté, as well as BogenLied, the first piece for augmented violin, for the Festival Why Note.

From 2003 to 2005, she was composer-in-residence at MIA (Musiques inventives d’Annecy) and at the École nationale de musique d’Annecy. In this role she wrote Electrics and the video opera Piranhas. In 2004, she was a finalist for the Prince Pierre of Monaco Foundation Music Composition Prize. She was then named to the artistic committee of the Ensemble L’Itinéraire, with whom she became a composer-in-residence in Dijon starting in 2005, as well as holding a research residency with the IRCAM. In 2006, she held a residency at GRAME in Lyon, for which she wrote Beréchit. That same year, she composed StreicherKreis, a commission from the IRCAM for string quartet and electronics, which was premiered in 2008 by the Danel quartet. This was followed by Cinq études pour quatuor à cordes in 2009. In 2010, the Cottbus Philharmonic Orchestra premiered AntePrima for large orchestra, and in 2011, she composed La Muette based on the eponymous novel by Chahdortt Djavann, a piece for voice, ensemble, and electronics, which premiered at the IRCAM in February 2012. In 2014, she received a Commande d’État for The Waves, a piece for voice, ensemble, and electronics, based on the text by Virginia Woolf, which was premiered by the ensemble TM+, conducted by Laurent Cuniot. She then composed two pieces for string quartet, Streicher #2 (2016) and Manfred (2017), which were premiered by the Quatuor Girard and the Quatuor Manfred (respectively). In 2021, for Ircam’s ManiFeste festival, she composed the Musique-Fiction program based on a text by Lydie Salvayre, La Compagnie des Spectres, a device designed for the ambisonic dome, consisting of 64 loudspeakers.

One of the guiding principles of her work is the critical integration of a natively instrumental vocabulary into her writing. Her research at the IRCAM led to a strong interest in mixed music, which brings soloists and electronics together in a unique, interactive relationship linked to instrumental gesture, and which seeks to showcase phenomena of interpretation that influence the ways sound is transformed.

In 2018, she received the René Dumesnil Prize from the Académie des Beaux Arts at the Institut de France for the whole of her work.

Her works are regularly performed by ensembles such as L’Itinéraire, Court-circuit, Fa, 2e2m, and Ensemble intercontemporain, and are published by Lemoine-Jobert.