Maurice Ohana spent most of his childhood in Morocco. From 1927 to 1929, his family lived in Biarritz, where he studied piano with Jehanne Pâris. Upon graduating from secondary school in 1932, he undertook studies of architecture (which he abandoned a few years later) in Paris, while continuing to study piano with Lazare Lévy, and later with Frank Marshall in Barcelona. During his time living in Paris, he gave numerous recitals, met the esteemed flamenco dancer and choreographer “La Argentinita” and her guitarist Ramón Montoya, toured with singer Lotte Schöne, studied counterpoint with Daniel-Lesur, and composed his first pieces (which have since been lost or withdrawn from his catalogue). In 1939, he married his first wife, and the following year, enlisted in the British army (his father was a Gibraltan Andalusian, and hence, also a British citizen), going on to serve in military campaigns in Europe and Africa. In 1944, while on assignment in Naples, he met André Gide, who remained a close friend. In subsequent periods of military inactivity (with Rome having been liberated in the Summer of 1944), he studied piano with Alfredo Casella at the Académie Santa Cecilia. It was around this time that he composed his Caprice No. 1 for piano.

In 1946, Ohana once again settled in Paris. In 1947, alongside Alain Bermat and Pierre de La Forest Divonne, he co-founded the “Zodiaque” Group; rejecting all compositional schools as forms of “artistic tyranny,” the movement encouraged each composer to explore his/her own historical musical traditions. One of Ohana’s most significant works, Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, premiered in 1950 and influenced by both the music of Manuel de Falla and cante jondo (a vocal style in the flamenco tradition), embodies this anti-establishment spirit. He subsequently abandoned his career as a performer in order to focus exclusively on composition. He studied the techniques of musique concrète with Pierre Schaeffer and composed his first radiophonic works, in which his personal musical language continued to evolve, rejecting intellectualism and revealing a devotion to Spanish traditional musics and African rhythms, notions which are also manifest in works such as Cantigas (1953-54) and the Choreographic Studies for percussion (1955).

Ohana’s pursuit of novel sonorities led him to undertake research on the use of micro-intervals, which he notably applied in Tombeau de Claude Debussy (1962), a work which, in the composer’s words, marked a turning point in his creative identity. He was twice awarded the “Grand Prix” from the Charles Cros Academy, first for the recordings of Syllabaire pour Phèdre and Signes, and later for those of Cantigas and Cris. The 1970s again marked a new phase in his professional trajectory, with the creation of major works such as the Twenty-four Preludes for piano, premiered by Jean-Claude Pennetier in 1973; Anneau du Tamarit for cello and orchestra (1976); Lys de Madrigaux for female choir and chamber ensemble; Messe, premiered at the Avignon Festival in 1977, a work which attempts to evoke Christian worship during the time of Christ; Livre des Prodiges (1978), one of only a handful of works for orchestra; and Trois Contes de l’Honorable Fleur (1978), a chamber opera with a libretto written partly by his second wife, philosopher Odile Marcel.

The early-1980s saw Ohana’s continued exploration of the piano, giving rise to Piano Concerto (1980), dedicated to Jean-Claude Pennetier, and the six first Etudes d’interprétation (1981-82), among other works. He spent the next five years (1982-87) working almost exclusively on his opera La Célestine, which was premiered at the Paris Opera in 1988. With a handful of notable exceptions, e.g., the Cello Concerto: “In dark and blue” (1988-90), the Third String Quartet: “Sorgin-Ngô” (1989), and Anonyme XX^e siècle (1988) for two guitars, his final works were all for voice.

A stalwart of personal and artistic freedom, Ohana defined himself as a “modern archaic”. While remaining faithful to his Andalusian origins, their manifestations in the contemporary musical syntax which characterised his work are strikingly universal in nature. A deeply superstitious man, who insisted that he had been born in 1914 rather than 1913, Maurice Ohana died in Paris, as fate would have it, on Friday, 13 November 1992, leaving behind him a rich and profoundly original body of works.

Major distinctions

• 1961: Italia Prize for Histoire véridique de Jacotin qui épousa la sirène des océans
• 1975: National “Grand Prix” for Music (France)
• 1978: Florence Gould Prize from the French Academy of Fine Arts
• 1982: Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters; Arthur Honegger Prize
• 1983: Prize of the City of Paris
• 1985: Maurice Ravel Prize
• 1990: Knight of the Legion of Honour
• 1992: SACEM Prize for the Best Contemporary Work for his cello concerto “in dark and blue”