Claude Ballif

Claude Ballif (22 May 1924 – 24 July 2004) was a French composer, writer, and pedagogue. He worked at a number of institutions throughout more than 40 years of teaching, one of which he had attended as a student. Alexandre Desplat, and Claude Abromont. He was described as a French modernist and as "the product of the exciting and turbulent post World War II years of the Western avant-garde" alongside composers Pierre Boulez and Karlheinz Stockhausen.

Biography Ballif was born in Paris on 22 May 1924, the fifth of ten children. Ballif started music at an early age; though the piano was his first love, he was told piano was for girls and that his fingers would never be able to make the right positions, so he learned violin. While in Madagascar, "Captain Durand," an artillery director on base, taught Ballif music theory; he took violin lessons from a beggar.

Ballif spent the final years of his life living in Haute-Marne at the Château de Riaucourt, which had been passed down to him by his maternal grandfather. He died on 24 July 2004 in Saint-Dizier and is buried in Poissons. He struggled in his early years of music study with balancing his need for independent creation and the university's regimented music lessons. He became interested in microtonal theory after meeting Ivan Wyschnegradsky for the first time; Wyschnegradsky and Alois Hába "launched [him] into the ultrachromatic universe."

Awards Year Award Awarding body Country Ref 1955 Composition Competition Geneva International Music Competition Switzerland