20th-century French composers

Jacques Castérède (10 April 1926 – 6 April 2014) was a French composer and pianist.

Gérard Calvi (born Grégoire Krettly; 26 July 1922 – 20 February 2015) was a French composer.
Interested in music from an early age, Calvi's first composing work was for the French production The Patron in 1949. From here he provided music for various French films, most notably Gangster Boss, as well as the show La Plume de Ma Tante, which was nominated for Best Musical at the 13th Tony Awards.He composed music for three Asterix films: Asterix the Gaul, Asterix and Cleopatra and The Twelve Tasks of Asterix.He also composed the memorable Asterix theme for the first film, which was dispensed with by the time the music for The Twelve Tasks of Asterix was composed in 1976.
His last work was for the feature film The Crab Revolution in 2004. He died in 2015, aged 92.

Roger Jean Boutry (27 February 1932 – 7 September 2019) was a French composer and conductor.

Olivier Georges Alain (3 August 1918 – 28 February 1994) was a French organist, pianist, musicologist and composer.

Jacques Leguerney (19 November 1906 – 10 September 1997) was a French composer especially noted for his art songs.

Paul Pierné (30 June 1874 – 24 March 1952) was a French composer and organist.

Gaston Gilbert Litaize (11 August 1909 – 5 August 1991) was a French organist and composer. Considered one of the 20th century masters of the French organ, he toured, recorded, worked at churches, and taught students in and around Paris. Blind from infancy, he studied and taught for most of his life at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for the Blind).

Bernard Vitet (26 May 1934 – 3 July 2013) was a French trumpeter, multi-instrumentist and composer, co-founder of the first free jazz band in France (1964) together with François Tusques, Michel Portal Unit (1972) and Un Drame Musical Instantané with Jean-Jacques Birgé and Francis Gorgé in 1976.

Hubert Rostaing (17 September 1918 – 10 June 1990) was a jazz clarinetist and tenor saxophonist. He also did film composition and classical music.
He began his career in Algiers with the "Red Hotters" and later moved to Paris. He might be best known for playing clarinet or saxophone in Django Reinhardt's quintet. His most known performance in that role might be his playing clarinet on Nuages. He later led a band, but after 1962 left jazz for film composing and classical music. He was orchestrator, conductor, or arranger for over 20 French films.

Jacques Loussier (26 October 1934 – 5 March 2019) was a French pianist and composer. He arranged jazz interpretations of many of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, such as the Goldberg Variations. The Jacques Loussier Trio, founded in 1959, played more than 3,000 concerts and sold more than 7 million recordings—mostly in the Bach series. Loussier composed film scores and a number of classical pieces, including a Mass, a ballet, and violin concertos. His style is described as third stream, a synthesis of jazz and classical music, with an emphasis on improvisation.