Igor Wakhévitch

Igor Wakhevitch (born 12 May 1948 in Gassin-Saint Tropez, France) is an avant-garde French composer who released a series of studio albums in the 1970s and composed the music of the only opera imagined by Salvador Dalí: Être Dieu ("To Be God"). Igor is the elder son of the very famous set designer, cinema, theatre, opera, ballet Georges Wakhevitch and Maria Carlo (Marica Wakhevitch), a French actress, pupil of George and Ludmilla Pitoeff, and later on, a close associate of Yves Saint-Laurent and Hubert de Givenchy in Paris, in charge of the "prêt à porter" (Boutique Yves Saint-Laurent). Igor's young brother, Alexandre Wakhevitch is an eminent historian of classical painting, mostly the Italian "Renaissance" period.

Igor Wakhevitch was a contemporary of similar avant-garde electronic composers, such as Pierre Henry, who was born and based in Paris. Igor Wakhevitch himself a brilliant classical pianist was one of the first composer of his generation to introduce in his compositions various kind of electronic keyboards, Moog synthesizer, Synthi AKS, ARP synthesizer, "Ondes Martenot", electronic organ, etc. : some of his albums, as "Logos" or "Hathor", "Nagual", "Let's Start" are amongst the most impressive albums of experimental music released in France in the 70's. By many all over the world he is considered as a genius. But certainly a very creative soul in a perpetual search of "sounds of power" (occult sounds, the inaudible), a new kind of Sacred Music, cosmic oriented, Igor finding his inspiration from mother universal nature and sacred scriptures, mostly from the Holy Kabbalah (Zohar, Sepher Yetsira, etc.) and other holy books from Hinduism, principally, the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Bhagavad-Gîta, the Sri Aurobindo highly inspired poetry ("Savitri", Collected Poems, etc.) and his great spiritual teachings (The Synthesis of Yoga, The Life Divine, Essay on the Gîta, The Secret of the Veda, Hymns of the Mystic Fire, the Human Cycle, the Ideal of Human Unity, the Supramental Manifestation upon Earth, Three Upanishad, the Roots of Indian Culture, the French Revolution, etc.), not forgetting the incredible legacy of the Mother: "the Mother Agenda" in thirteen volumes.

From the age of eight, Igor Wakhevitch learned to play piano under the tutelage of Marguerite Long the legendary French classical pianist and [Lucette Descaves]. Between the ages of 12 and 17, he studied classical piano and various music disciplines at the "Paris National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance" Conservatoire de Paris. Igor was fourteen years old only when he was auditioned by the legendary philarmonic orchestra conductor, Maestro Herbert von Karajan at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris and in 1965 he was 17 years old when he was awarded the First Prize in Piano (classical) by a unanimous vote of the jury (Paris National Superior Conservatory of Music and Dance).

...
Wikipedia