Known as the father of musique concrète, Pierre Schaeffer was also a writer and pioneer of radio technology, notably founding the research branch of the Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française (ORTF), which he directed from 1960 to 1975. A graduate of the Paris École Polytechnique (1931), Supélec (École Supérieure d’Électricité), and Télécom (École Nationale Supérieure des Télécommunications), his field of research extended beyond audio-visual communications, notably to experimental music. In this domain, his theoretical contributions are no less historically significant than his modestly-sized catalogue of compositions.

In 1934, Schaeffer was made Regional Manager of Telecommunications in Strasbourg. From 1935 to 1943, he studied analysis with Nadia Boulanger. In 1938, he started a chronicle on radio broadcasting in the Revue musicale. Enlisted into the military in 1939 and discharged in July 1940, in the following October, Schaeffer hosted Radio Jeunesse, a daily radio programme aimed at young people. He went on to found Jeune France, an organisation which sought to promote the work of young, independent artists, under the auspices of the Ministry of Youth.

In late-1941, he became an engineer at the National Radio in Marseille, where he met Jacques Copeau. The two went on to lead a workshop in Beaune in 1942 on radio technology and related artforms. In the same year, Schaeffer founded an experimental studio as part of the French National Radio, where he recorded his radio opera, La coquille à planètes. It was in this studio that the first works of musique concrète, notably the Études de bruits (“Noise Studies”), were composed in 1948. Collaboration with Pierre Henry, who would become Schaeffer’s closest artistic partner, gave rise to works such as Symphonie pour un homme seul (1949-1950), which would subsequently be set to choreography by Maurice Béjart and performed around the world in 1955, and Orphée 51 ou Toute la lyre, the first scenic work to combine voices, instruments, and tape.

In 1951, Schaeffer founded the Groupe de Recherche de Musique Concrète at the National Radio, and in 1952, Editions du Seuil published his book, In Search of a Concrete Music. In the same year, he created the first anthology of works from his experimental studio, titled Ten Years of Radiophonic Experiments: 1942-1952.

In 1953, at the behest of the French Ministry of Overseas Territories, Schaeffer founded “SORAFOM” (Société de radiodiffusion de la France d’outre-mer). The organisation was made an official governmental office in 1955, but Schaeffer was removed from this position in 1957.

In 1958, the year in which he composed Étude aux allures, Étude aux sons animés, and Étude aux objets, the Groupe de recherche de musique concrète changed its name to Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM). This organisation would go on to serve as a laboratory for all forms of musical experimentation and to challenge the accepted definitions of the notions of music, listening, timbre, and sound - ontological research that was subsequently formalised in Schaeffer’s monumental treatise, the Traité des objets musicaux (1966).

In 1960, the first Festival de la Recherche was organised, comprising concerts, film screenings, and lectures. In 1962, a first version of the “Concert Collectif“ took place, an event for which numerous composers were invited to create short works. Also in the early 1960s, Schaeffer lectured in numerous countries. He resigned as director of the GRM in 1966 (succeeded by François Bayle) in order to concentrate on the research department, which he had founded in 1960 and which subsequently became the INA (National Audio-Visual Institute) in 1975.

Schaeffer was a member of the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) from 1967 to 1975. In 1968, he inaugurated a seminar dedicated to experimental music at the Paris Conservatoire, remaining a professor at the institution until 1980.

In 1970, he published an assessment of current research on the means and systems of audio-visual communication, and from 1971 to 1975, was president of the Research Commission of the UNESCO International Council for Film, Television and Audio-Visual Communication. In 1970 and 1972 respectively, the two volumes of Machines for Communicating were published.

Schaeffer briefly returned to composing in the second half of the 1970s, which gave rise to Le trièdre fertile (1975) and Bilude (1979). However, he continued to dedicate most of his time to research on communication networks and to his literary activities. Several radio and television programmes have been dedicated to his work, and he has received numerous accolades, including honorary membership of the Faculty of Arts at Tel Aviv University (1982) and the McLuhan Communications Prize in Montreal (1989), as well as several homage events at the Pompidou Centre, INA, Cité des Sciences, and Paris Polytechnique, among others.