Erik Satie

Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (17 May 1866 – 1 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. Born in Honfleur, Normandy, Satie was an undistinguished student at the Paris Conservatoire and worked as a café-cabaret pianist in Montmartre, Paris, composing works such as Gymnopédies and Gnossiennes. His style evolved, rejecting post-Wagnerian impressionism for simpler, unresolved harmonies, and influenced figures like Maurice Ravel, Claude Debussy, and later John Cage. He composed music for the Rosicrucian sect and collaborated with Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso. Satie remained unmarried, living modestly in Paris, and died of cirrhosis at 59.