Elsa Jacqueline Barraine (13 February 1910 - 20 March 1999) was a French composer

Composer

A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

. Born in Paris, she was the daughter of cellist Alfred Barraine. She studied with Jean Gallon

Jean Gallon

Jean Gallon was a French composer, choir conductor, and music educator. His compositional output consists of six antiphons for strings and organ, one mass, one ballet, and several art songs....

 (harmony), Abel Estyle (piano), George Caussade (Fugue), and Paul Dukas

Paul Dukas

Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...

 (composition) at the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

. She won first prize for both harmony (1925) and piano accompaniment (1927) from the conservatory.

In 1929 Barraine won first prize at the Prix de Rome

Prix de Rome

The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...

 for her cantata

Cantata

A cantata is a vocal composition with an instrumental accompaniment, typically in several movements, often involving a choir....

 La Vierge guerrière; having received second prize at the contest the year before for her Heracles à Delpes. From 1936-1939 she was the directorof vocal music for Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française

Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française

Radiodiffusion-Télévision Française was the French national public broadcasting organization established on 9 February 1949 to replace the post-war "Radiodiffusion Française" , which had been founded in 1945...

. During World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 she was an active member of the Front National des Musiciens

Front National des Musiciens

The Front National des Musiciens was an organization of musicians in Nazi occupied France that was part of the French Resistance. Active from the Spring of 1941 through the Autumn of 1944, the group's most prominent members were composers Elsa Barraine and Louis Durey, and conductor Roger Désormière....

 which resisted German occupation. From 1944-1946 she was director of the Orchestre National de France

Orchestre National de France

The Orchestre national de France is a symphony orchestra run by Radio France. It has also been known as the Orchestre national de la Radiodiffusion française and Orchestre national de l'Office de Radiodiffusion Télévision Française .Since 1944, the orchestra has been based in the Théâtre...

 and music director of the record label and music publishing house Le Chant du Monde

Le Chant du Monde

Le Chant du monde is the oldest French record label and music publishing house in activity. It has been created in 1938.It is particularly known worldwide for its contribution to ethnographic recordings but is better known in France for publishing old classics and new comers of chanson, and...

. She participated in the Association des musiciens progressistes in 1949 along with Serge Nigg

Serge Nigg

-Biography:After initial studies with Ginette Martenot, Nigg entered the Paris Conservatory in 1941 and studied harmony with Olivier Messiaen and counterpoint with Simone Plé-Caussade. In 1945, he met René Leibowitz, who introduced him to the twelve-tone technique of composition...

, Roger Desormiere

Roger Désormière

Roger Désormière was a French conductor.Désormière was born in Vichy in 1898. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, where his professors included Philippe Gaubert , Xavier Leroux and Charles Koechlin , and Vincent d'Indy...

, Louis Durey

Louis Durey

-Life:Louis Durey was born in Paris, the son of a local businessman. It was not until he was nineteen years old that he chose to pursue a musical career after hearing a performance of a Claude Debussy work. As a composer he was primarily self-taught. From the beginning, choral music was of great...

, and Charles Koechlin

Charles Koechlin

Charles Louis Eugène Koechlin was a French composer, teacher and writer on music. He was a political radical all his life and a passionate enthusiast for such diverse things as medieval music, The Jungle Book of Rudyard Kipling, Johann Sebastian Bach, film stars , travelling, stereoscopic...

.

Barraine joined the faculty of the Conservatoire de Paris

Conservatoire de Paris

The Conservatoire de Paris is a college of music and dance founded in 1795, now situated in the avenue Jean Jaurès in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, France...

 in 1953, initially as a teacher of harmony. She later taught musical analysis at the conservatoire from 1969-1973. She served as the Director of Music at the French Ministry of Culture

Minister of Culture (France)

The Minister of Culture is, in the Government of France, the cabinet member in charge of national museums and monuments; promoting and protecting the arts in France and abroad; and managing the national archives and regional "maisons de culture"...

from 1972-1974.