Yann Tiersen (born 23 June 1970) is a French musician and composer.
His musical career is split between studio albums, collaborations and
film soundtracks. His music involves a large variety of instruments;
primarily the guitar, piano, synthesizer or violin together with
instruments like the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, harpsichord,
accordion and typewriter.Tiersen is often mistaken for a composer of
soundtracks, himself saying "I'm not a composer and I really don't
have a classical background," but his real focus is on touring and
studio albums which just happen to often be suitable for film. His
most famous soundtrack was for the film Amélie, and was primarily
made up of tracks taken from his first three studio albums.Tiersen was
born in Brest in the Finistère département in Brittany in
northwestern France, in 1970, into a French family of Belgian and
Norwegian origins. He started learning piano at the age of four,
violin at the age of six, and received classical training at several
musical academies, including those in Rennes, Nantes, and Boulogne. In
the early 1980s when he was a teenager, he was influenced by the punk
subculture, and bands like The Stooges and Joy Division. In 1983, at
the age of 13, he broke his violin, bought an electric guitar, and
formed a rock band. Tiersen was then living in Rennes, home to the
three-day music festival Rencontres Trans Musicales, held annually in
December, which gave him the opportunity to see acts like Nirvana,
Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Cramps,
Television, and Suicide. A few years later, when his band broke up,
Tiersen bought a cheap mixing desk, an 8-track reel-to-reel tape
recorder, and started recording music solo with a synthesizer, a
sampler, and a drum machine.
His musical career is split between studio albums, collaborations and
film soundtracks. His music involves a large variety of instruments;
primarily the guitar, piano, synthesizer or violin together with
instruments like the melodica, xylophone, toy piano, harpsichord,
accordion and typewriter.Tiersen is often mistaken for a composer of
soundtracks, himself saying "I'm not a composer and I really don't
have a classical background," but his real focus is on touring and
studio albums which just happen to often be suitable for film. His
most famous soundtrack was for the film Amélie, and was primarily
made up of tracks taken from his first three studio albums.Tiersen was
born in Brest in the Finistère département in Brittany in
northwestern France, in 1970, into a French family of Belgian and
Norwegian origins. He started learning piano at the age of four,
violin at the age of six, and received classical training at several
musical academies, including those in Rennes, Nantes, and Boulogne. In
the early 1980s when he was a teenager, he was influenced by the punk
subculture, and bands like The Stooges and Joy Division. In 1983, at
the age of 13, he broke his violin, bought an electric guitar, and
formed a rock band. Tiersen was then living in Rennes, home to the
three-day music festival Rencontres Trans Musicales, held annually in
December, which gave him the opportunity to see acts like Nirvana,
Einstürzende Neubauten, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, The Cramps,
Television, and Suicide. A few years later, when his band broke up,
Tiersen bought a cheap mixing desk, an 8-track reel-to-reel tape
recorder, and started recording music solo with a synthesizer, a
sampler, and a drum machine.
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