Maurice Ravel

Hello. My name is Maurice Ravel, and I was a composer. That means I wrote music. I was born in a little town in France by the sea on March 7th, 1875. My mother used to sing beautiful Spanish folk songs to me, and from the moment I first heard them, I fell in love with music. When I was seven years old, I started taking piano lessons, and I knew right away that making music was what I wanted to do for my whole life. Music felt like my special language, and the piano was my best friend. I loved practicing and learning how to make beautiful sounds come from the keys.

When I was a boy, my family moved to the big, bustling city of Paris. It was so exciting. When I turned 14 in 1889, I was good enough at music to go to a very famous school called the Paris Conservatoire. There, I learned how to be a composer, which is like being a storyteller who uses musical notes instead of words. I loved to create music that painted pictures in your mind. I wrote a piece called 'Pavane for a Dead Princess', which sounds sad but is really about a beautiful, graceful dance from long ago. I also wrote the music for a magical ballet in 1912 called 'Daphnis et Chloé'. It was a long story told completely through music and dance.

Have you ever heard a song that starts very, very quiet and gets louder, and louder, and LOUDER until it's a huge, exciting sound? I wrote a piece just like that. In 1928, I composed my most famous piece of music, called 'Boléro'. It has a catchy rhythm that repeats over and over, played by a snare drum. Then, one by one, different instruments in the orchestra join in, playing the same melody. It's a fun musical game that builds up to a giant, surprising finish. It is one of my most famous works and is still played all over the world.

I lived to be 62 years old and passed away in 1937. Even though I am no longer here, my music is played all around the world. Orchestras in big concert halls still perform the stories I wrote with my notes. I hope that when you hear my music, it makes you feel something special—maybe the excitement of 'Boléro' or the dreamy colors of my other pieces. I'm so happy that the music I created continues to bring joy and wonder to people just like you.