Paul Paray

French conductor, organist and composer.

In 1911, Paul Paray won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata Yanitza.

In 1914, he was a prisoner of war at the Darmstadt camp, where he composed a string quartet. Refusing any musical association with the Germans, he submitted to a harsh four-year period of captivity, while developing the astonishing ability to compose music without the aid of an instrument, conceiving and formulating all the musical details mentally which he would later transcribe on paper in a single stroke, without erasure.

In 1952, he was appointed music director of the Detroit Symphony Orchestra which he had built it into one of the world's most distinguished.

His vast culture and prodigious musical memory permitted him to excel in the classical orchestral repertory, whether it be German, French or Russian, and to conduct the numerous premiers his contemporaries asked of him.

His own works are rich in rhythmic and melodic invention. They include vocal and choral works, piano, chamber music, mass and symphonies.

He died 10 October 1979, Monte Carlo.