Jacques Ibert, a French composer known for his versatile and eclectic compositional style, was born in Paris in 1890. Though his mother, a pianist, encouraged his participation in music from a young age, his father wanted him to take over the family business. By the time he attended the Paris Conservatory to study composition, his father had cut him off financially, so Ibert worked as an accompanist and composer of popular music under a pen name. He developed a great love for theater and would sometimes play as a pianist for silent movies. His studies were interrupted after he was drafted into military service in World War I, where he served in a medical unit. Luckily, he survived the war with no major injuries, and upon his return in 1919, he won the Prix de Rome for composition.

While studying in Rome, Ibert composed the two pieces that would gain him recognition as a composer in France and internationally: La Ballade de la Geôle de Reading (1920) and Escales (1922). He established himself as a top composer of his generation with the success of his popular opera-bouffe Angélique in 1927. Throughout his career, Ibert explored nearly every genre, composing works for opera, ballet, film, theater, symphony, chamber ensemble, and solo instruments. Ibert drew inspiration from a number of different styles and composers, refusing to adhere to any one musical tradition. While his music is unique in its lyricism, irony, and wit, he is mainly categorized as an eclectic composer. 

Ibert held many administrative positions throughout his life and also enjoyed conducting. He served as the music director of the Académie de France at the Villa Medici in Rome for many years, with a short interruption due to World War II, when Italy and France were at war and his music was banned by the Vichy government. Nonetheless, he enjoyed his position there and enthusiastically shared the French culture in Italy. He also briefly led the Paris Opera and Opéra-Comique, and took on an administrative position at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Ibert died in 1962 after a lifetime dedicated to French music and culture. 

Photo credit: Boris Lipnitzki / Roger-Viollet