Jean-Michel Jarre

Born 24 August 1948, Jarre grew up in Lyon surrounded by jazz, street performers, and the painter Pierre Soulages, then studied under musique concrète pioneer Pierre Schaeffer at the Groupe de Recherches Musicales. Oxygène, recorded in a makeshift home studio in 1976, became an international phenomenon. Equinoxe followed in 1978, and in 1979 he played to over a million at the Place de la Concorde — a record he'd break three more times, culminating in that Moscow show. He was the first Western musician officially invited to perform in the People's Republic of China, and by 2004 had sold an esti…