page_title: Jean-Michel Jarre
section_title: 2015–2019
hierarchical_section_title: Jean-Michel Jarre / Biography / 2015–2019
caption_attribution_description: English: Jean-Michel Jarre plays on keys at a concert in Bratislava, 2016.
context_page_description: Jean-Michel André Jarre is a French composer, performer and record producer. He is a pioneer in the electronic, ambient and new-age genres, and is known for organising outdoor spectacles featuring his music, vast laser displays, large projections and fireworks.
  Jarre was raised in Lyon by his mother and grandparents and trained on the piano. From an early age, he was introduced to a variety of art forms, including street performers, jazz musicians and the artist Pierre Soulages. He played guitar in a band, but his musical style was perhaps most heavily influenced by Pierre Schaeffer, a pioneer of musique concrète at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales.
  His first mainstream success was the 1976 album Oxygène. Recorded in a makeshift studio at his home, the album sold an estimated 12 million copies. Oxygène was followed in 1978 by Équinoxe, and in 1979, Jarre performed to a record-breaking audience of more than a million people at the Place de la Concorde, a record he has since broken three times. More albums were to follow, but his 1979 concert served as a blueprint for his future performances around the world.
context_section_description: In Spring 2015, Jarre released the first music from a new studio album, released in October 2015, following around four years of work. The album, Electronica 1: The Time Machine (working title: E-Project), comprises a number of collaborations with other artists. The first of these to be released was the collaboration with Gesaffelstein entitled Conquistador, followed by Glory, with M83. The track was also featured as part of the soundtrack of a short film entitled EMIC. Other collaborations on the album include Zero Gravity, with the late Edgar Froese and Tangerine Dream (with a remix by Above and Beyond); Vince Clarke for Automatic (parts 1 and 2); Armin van Buuren for Stardust, John Carpenter for "A Question of Blood", Little Boots for If..! and Pete Townshend for Travelator, Pt. 2. The album became Jarre's first album in over 25 years to make the UK Top 10 at No. 8. In December 2016, the album was nominated for the Grammys 2017 Awards in the "Best Dance/Electronic Album" category.
  In June 2015, in collaboration with Jean-Michel Jarre, the transmedia project Soundhunters was released on the platform of the Franco-German channel ARTE. The transmedia conceptualized by the Blies brothers (Stéphane Hueber-Blies and Nicolas Blies), François Le Gall and Marion Guth of the Luxembourg production company a_BAHN, is openly inspired by the album Zoolook to which it pays tribute. The transmedia is composed of a web documentary using Zoolook's creative process involving 4 international artists (Simonne Jones, Mikael Seifu, Daedelus and Luke Vibert); a 52' documentary film directed by Beryl Koltz broadcast in September 2015 on ARTE (with the participation of Chassol, Matthew Herbert, Blixa Bargel, Jean-Michel Jarre, Matmos, Kiz, Joseph Bertolozzi); and finally a participatory tribute music album whose tracks were chosen by Jean-Michel Jarre, entitled Zoolook Revisited. Soundhunters won the Fipa d'Or 2015 in Biarritz. Soundhunters was also presented in conference at SXSW and Convergence NYFF 2016.
  In 2016, Electronica 2: The Heart of Noise was released with 15 more collaborators, including Pet Shop Boys, Hans Zimmer, Yello and Gary Numan. One track (8 "Exit") includes speech by Edward Snowden. Electronica 2 has been nominated in the Album de musiques électroniques ou dance category for the Grammy 2017 in USA & Victoires de la Musique 2017 awards in France.
  On 11 April 2016, it was revealed that Jarre worked in collaboration with British virtual band Gorillaz on their fifth studio album Humanz. He also composed during 2016 the soundtrack for the French news network France Info. This soundtrack, in an orchestrated arrangement, was released as Radiophonie vol. 9 on 13 January 2017.
  On 30 September 2016, Jarre himself announced on Facebook a new album, called Oxygène 3, released on 2 December 2016, the 40th anniversary of Oxygène.
  In 2017, he performed a concert near the fortress of Masada, for the purpose of saving the Dead Sea. He also performed a special concert for the opening of the Año Jubilar (Jubilee year) at the Monasterio de Santo Toribio de Liébana, in Spain. Both concerts were heavily based in the Electronica Tour concept. During May 2017, Jarre toured in Canada and USA for the first time in his career, and in July 2017 another leg of the tour was held in Europe.
  In March 2018, Jarre performed in South America for the first time as part of his Electronica Tour in Buenos Aires and Santiago de Chile. These concerts were originally scheduled for November 2017, but problems with the production company caused the rescheduling. The 2018 leg of the tour continued in Canada and the United States during April, including the presentation of the Electronica show with a reduced track list in the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival, ending with a one-off concert at Riyadh to celebrate the 88th Saudi National Day (September 23). This concert was called "The Green Concert", and involved laser projections on the skyscrapers of the financial center of Riyadh.
  In September 2018, a studio compilation album entitled Planet Jarre – 50 Years 
caption: Jean-Michel Jarre performing Electronica tour in Bratislava
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