Erik Satie

ric Alfred Leslie Satie , who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th century Parisian avantgarde. His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, Surrealism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd.

Satie was the son of Alfred Satie and his wife Jane Leslie , who was born in London to Scottish parents. Erik was born at Honfleur in Normandy his home there is open to the public. When Satie was four years old, his family moved to Paris, his father having been offered a translators job in the capital. After his mothers death in 1872, he was sent , together with his younger brother, Conrad, back to Honfleur to live with his paternal grandparents. There he received his first music lessons from a local organist. In 1878, when he wasyears old, his grandmother died, and the two brothers were reunited in Paris with their father, who remarried shortly afterwards. From the early 1880s onwards, Satie started publishing salon compositions by his stepmother and himself, among others.

Source: Wikipedia