Nguyen-Thien Dao, a Vientamese-French composer, was born in Hanoi in 1940. He graduated with highest honors in the composition class of Olivier Messiaen from the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique in Paris. He was also awarded the Olivier Messiaen prize by the Praemium Erasmianum Foundation.

In his many compositions, time, timbre, micro-intervals, and the question of what new technologies could add to music were central preoccupations. As he said, “I make an effort to step outside the time and the space I inhabit. Wherever I am, I try not to experience precisely that time and that space; silence helps transport me to my inner landscape.”