François Bayle

François Bayle (27 April 1932, Tamatave, Madagascar) is a French composer. Studied in Bordeaux (1946–54), at the Paris Conservatoire, with Olivier Messiaen (1958–9) and at the Darmstadt summer courses (1960–62) with among others, Karlheinz Stockhausen. Joined the "Service de la recherche de l'Office de la radio-télévision française (ORTF) in 1960, recently established by Pierre Schaeffer. In 1966 Schaeffer put Bayle in charge of the Groupe de recherches musicales (GRM). From then on Bayle remained active as a composer, an administrator and a music theorist. During all those years he organized concerts, radio broadcasts, seminars and events celebrating individual composers, supported technological developments (Syter, GRM Tools, Midi Formers, Acousmographe) and was behind major innovations, such as the Acousmonium (an orchestra of loudspeakers) and the INA-GRM label. He also founded in 1992 the Acousmathèque with the GRM library gathering more than 2000 works composed since 1948. After leaving GRM in 1997, Bayle founded his own audio-numerical and multiphonic studio, the studio Magison, where he has devoted himself to research, writing and composition. Magison serves also as a label to publish his own works on digital discs.