Born in Casablanca on 12 June 1913, Maurice Ohana pursued most of his musical training as well as his general education in France. For a time, he considered a career in architecture, but ultimately abandoned this idea to devote himself entirely to music.

From a young age he trained as a pianist, his teachers including Ermend-Bonnal and Jéhanne Pâris, and began his career in the Basque Country where his family had re-settled. After moving to Paris in 1932, he took lessons with Lazare-Lévy, maintaining the career of a concert pianist. In 1937, he decided to develop his compositional interests formally and enrolled at the Schola Cantorum where he studied with Daniel-Lesur with whom he also formed a piano duo. The outbreak of war pulled him away from the musical world and he served the duration of hostilities with the British Army as an Intelligence Officer, often liaising with the French Maquis. Posted to Naples in the spring of 1944, where he first met André Gide, he ended up in Rome where he became a student and friend of Alfredo Casella at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.

After demobilisation in 1946, Ohana returned to Paris. It was during this time that his first works began to gain recognition in France. Together with three friends, he founded the Groupe Zodiaque, a compositional group that aimed to defend freedom of musical expression against the dictatorial artistic trends of the time. Throughout his life, he remained committed to the manifesto of his youthful struggles against what he called the ‘tyranny of serialism’.

Several significant constants are evident in his music. From Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías (1950) to the works of his late years, his evolution combines technical rigour with a sense of freedom both in his compositions and in his relationship with performers. Distancing himself from the dodecaphonic and serial movements, Ohana pursued his own revolution by evolving innovative compositional techniques to explore the essence of sound itself and the forms that arise naturally, and even spontaneously, from it.

While remaining true to his Andalusian origins, Ohana broadened their musical essence to develop a progressive compositional synthesis that engaged with the research and concerns of contemporary music. He liberated the musical scale from the constraints of the diatonic system through the incorporation of microintervals, freed rhythm from the traditional bar line, and restored vocal techniques to their original expressive virtues going well beyond the confines of bel canto.

As a pianist since childhood, he retained a special fondness for the piano but also made significant contributions to the repertoire of other instruments. These include his works for percussion, such as Quatre études chorégraphiques (1955) and Silenciare (1969), which have become contemporary classics of the genre; for 10-string guitar such as Si le jour paraît… (1964) and Cadran lunaire (1982); for harpsichord, such as Chiffres de clavecin (1968) and Deux pièces (1983), as well as for flute, string quartet and diverse instrumental ensembles. His many vocal works are particularly notable and include the chamber opera Syllabaire pour Phèdre (1967), Sibylle (1968) for soprano, percussion and tape, Cris (1969) for twelve unaccompanied voices and Office des Oracles (1974) for three vocal groups, three instrumental ensembles and three conductors. All of these works demonstrate his innovative temperament across all sound dimensions.

From 1974 onwards, he produced an almost continuous series of large-scale works including T’Harân-Ngô (1974) for large orchestra, Anneau du Tamarit (1976) for cello and orchestra, the Mass (1977) for voices and instrumental ensemble, the chamber opera Trois Contes de l’Honorable Fleur (1978), Livre des Prodiges (1979) for large orchestra, the Piano Concerto (1981), Douze Études d’interprétation (1982-5) for piano, and many more, culminating in his opera La Célestine, premiered at the Palais Garnier on 13 June 1988 to great critical acclaim.