Frank Martin

Frank Martin left his mark on the history of 20th century music. His free-thinking nature, profoundly humanistic and open to modernity, together with his creative excellence, allowed him to make a significant contribution to the renewal of the musical language of the last century, surpassing the singular to arrive at the universal.

Born in Geneva in 1890, Frank Martin studied piano, instrumentation and composition in Geneva under composer Joseph Lauber. Throughout his career in Geneva, Frank Martin taught musical theory and improvisation at both the Geneva Conservatory of Music as well as the Technicum Moderne de Musique, of which he was the founder. An expert in rhythmic theory, he taught classes in the subject at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze. In 1926, he founded the Geneva Chamber Music Society. He was awarded numerous accolades, among them the Prix de Genève in 1951, the Grand Prix of the Semaines Musicales Internationales de Paris in 1964, and the Prix Arthur Honegger in 1969. He was awarded honorary doctorates by the Universities of Geneva and Lausanne and became an honorary member of numerous institutions. He died in 1974 in Naarden in the Netherlands, where he had lived since 1946.