Born on August 24, 1948, Jean-Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer, and producer renowned for shaping the landscape of electronic, ambient, and new-age music. He is equally celebrated for his spectacular outdoor concerts, where his music is fused with massive laser shows, projections, and fireworks on an awe-inspiring scale.

Raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents, Jarre began studying piano early in life. His artistic sensibilities were shaped by a diverse cultural environment that included jazz, street performers, and the abstract work of painter Pierre Soulages. Though he briefly played guitar in a band, it was the experimental techniques of Pierre Schaeffer, founder of the musique concrètemovement, that deeply influenced his musical direction.

Jarre's breakthrough came in 1976 with the release of Oxygène, a groundbreaking album recorded in his home studio. It went on to sell an estimated 12 million copies worldwide. This success was followed by Équinoxein 1978. A year later, he made history by performing in front of more than one million people at Place de la Concorde in Paris—setting a new world record for concert attendance, one that he would surpass multiple times in his career.

In 1981, Jarre became the first Western artist officially invited to perform in the People's Republic of China. Over the years, his epic live shows have continued to draw massive crowds, including a record-setting 3.5 million attendees at his Moscow concert on September 6, 1997—the largest audience ever for an outdoor event.

Jarre’s albums are often released in conjunction with these monumental performances, reinforcing his dual legacy as both a composer and live performer. Most recently, he served as the headline artist at the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paralympic Games in Paris.

Throughout his career, Jarre has collaborated with an eclectic range of artists, including Moby, Armin van Buuren, Robert "3D" Del Naja, Edgar Froese, Laurie Anderson, Yello, Gesaffelstein, the Pet Shop Boys, Gary Numan, and Hans Zimmer.

As of July 2022, Jarre had sold approximately 85 million albums globally, according to BMG, which now manages his full music publishing catalog.