Camille Saint-Saëns

Bio

Camille Saint-Saëns was a French composer, organist, pianist and conductor born in Paris in 1835. A child prodigy who gave his first public recital at age ten, he studied at the Paris Conservatoire and later became organist at La Madeleine. Saint-Saëns composed across virtually every genre, writing symphonies, concertos, operas, chamber music and choral works. His best-known pieces include The Carnival of the Animals, Symphony No. 3 (Organ Symphony), and the opera Samson and Delilah. A key figure in French Romanticism, he championed new music while maintaining classical forms and later influenced younger composers such as Fauré and Ravel. He toured extensively, performed as a soloist into old age, and died in Algiers in 1921.