André Bon (born August 17, 1946) is a French composer. A student of Olivier Messiaen, he has composed over fifty works including several chamber operas. He is Professor of Composition at the Argenteuil Conservatory.

Olivier Eugène Prosper Charles Messiaen (UK: , US: ; French: [ɔlivje øʒɛn pʁɔspɛʁ ʃaʁl mɛsjɑ̃]; 10 December 1908 – 27 April 1992) was a French composer, organist, and ornithologist. One of the major composers of the 20th century, he was also an outstanding teacher of composition and musical analysis. Messiaen entered the Conservatoire de Paris at age 11 and studied with Paul Dukas, Maurice Emmanuel, Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré, among others. He was appointed organist at the Église de la Sainte-Trinité, Paris, in 1931, a post he held for 61 years, until his death. He taught at the Schola Cantorum de Paris during the 1930s. After the fall of France in 1940, Messiaen was interned for nine months in the German prisoner of war camp Stalag VIII-A, where he composed his Quatuor pour la fin du temps (Quartet for the End of Time) for the four instruments available in the prison—piano, violin, cello and clarinet. The piece was first performed by Messiaen and fellow prisoners for an audience of inmates and prison guards. Soon after his release in 1941, Messiaen was appointed professor of harmony at the Paris Conservatoire. In 1966, he was appointed professor of composition there, and he held both positions until retiring in 1978. His many distinguished pupils included Iannis Xenakis, Mikis Theodorakis, George Benjamin, Alexander Goehr, Pierre Boulez, Jacques Hétu, Tristan Murail, Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Kurtág, and Yvonne Loriod, who became his second wife. Messiaen perceived colours when he heard certain musical chords (a phenomenon known as chromesthesia); according to him, combinations of these colours were important in his compositional process. He travelled widely and wrote works inspired by diverse influences, including Japanese music, the landscape of Bryce Canyon in Utah, and the life of St. Francis of Assisi. His style absorbed many global musical influences, such as Indonesian gamelan (tuned percussion often features prominently in his orchestral works). He found birdsong fascinating, notating bird songs worldwide and incorporating birdsong transcriptions into his music. Messiaen's music is rhythmically complex. Harmonically and melodically, he employed a system he called modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from the systems of material his early compositions and improvisations generated. He wrote music for chamber ensembles and orchestra, voice, solo organ, and piano, and experimented with the use of novel electronic instruments developed in Europe during his lifetime. For a short period he experimented with the parametrisation associated with "total serialism", in which field he is often cited as an innovator. His innovative use of colour, his conception of the relationship between time and music, and his use of birdsong are among the features that make Messiaen's music distinctive.

Chants de Terre et de Ciel (Songs of Earth and Heaven) is a song cycle in six movements for soprano and piano by Olivier Messiaen, on text by the composer himself. It was composed in 1938 and premiered at the Société Triton's Concerts du Triton, at the École Normale de Musique de Paris in Paris on the 23 January 1939 with Marcelle Bunlet as the soprano and the composer at the piano. The cycle is deeply personal and reflects Messiaen's joy at the birth of his son Pascal in 1937, as well as his deep Catholicism.

This is a list of notable events in music that took place in the year 1945.

This is a list of compositions by Olivier Messiaen. Works are listed initially by genre and can be sorted chronologically by clicking on the "Date" header. Messiaen's compositions include works for chamber ensemble, orchestra, vocal music, music for piano and organ, as well as some of the earliest electronic music, with his use of the ondes Martenot in several of his compositions. Messiaen's work is characterised by rhythmic complexity, his interest in ornithology and birdcalls, and his system of modes of limited transposition.

O sacrum convivium! (Latin: O sacred banquet) is a short offertory motet for four-part mixed chorus (with organ accompaniment ad libitum) by French composer Olivier Messiaen, setting "O sacrum convivium," a text attributed to Thomas Aquinas. It was composed and published in 1937.

An étude is a musical composition (usually short) designed to provide practice in a particular technical skill in the performance of a solo instrument.