Carl Orff was born in Munich, Germany, on July 10th, 1895, into an upstanding family of officers and scholars. His family was Bavarian and of the Jewish faith. But later, Orff's family converted to Catholicism at the encouragement of his grandfather. His parents, accomplished amateur musicians, both played piano. Orff's father was a dedicated officer in the Imperial German Army, and in addition to piano, also played many string instruments. His mother, recognizing Orff's proclivity for music, was his first music teacher, beginning his piano instruction at the age of five. Later in his youth, he began studying composition, cello, and organ. Orff once said of his mother, " . . . my mother possessed a quintessentially artistic nature and was a fundamentally intelligent woman" (Orff-Stiftung, 2020, para. 1).
 

    By age 16, Orff published his first compositions — mostly songs set to the poetry of Germans but included a few instrumental works of varying difficulty. While his compositions were in line with most offerings of the day, one can see the beginnings of what would become Orff's distinctive stamp for his future musical creations. He graduated from Munich's Academie der Tonkunst at age 20 and quickly started experimenting with musical composition. During his time at the Acadmie, Orff found his instructors to be overly conservative. His later study of the works of Claude Debussy and Schoenberg's harmonic theory greatly influenced his future compositions (Shamrock, 2007).
 

   Orff is probably best remembered for his secular oratorio based on texts from medieval monks from the Benedictine priory of Andechs, near Munich. After almost 25 years of composing with modest success, his publication of Carmina Burana finally offered the respect and financial indepen-

dence that had previously eluded him. After its first performance in Frankfurt (June 1937), Carmina Burana became a standard in the classical repertoire by the late 1960s. Other significant works of Orff were: 'Antigonae' (1949), 'Oedipus der Tyrann' (Oedipus the Tyrant, 1958),' Prometheus' (1968), and 'De temporum fine comoedia' (Play on the End of Times (1971)).
 

   While refining his compositional skills, Orff also researched the possibilities for better music education for children (Morin, 1963). The basis of this work can be traced back to the 1920s when he began to experiment with a musical-movement style of composition inspired by Jacque-Dalcroze's Eurhythmics and The New Dance Wave. In 1924, building on the works of Dalcroze, he cofounded the Güntherschule with dancer and educator Dorothee Günther. The Güntherschule married the study of movement with music in ways that were vastly different from the traditional teaching norms employed in European movement schools at that time.
 

   Orff's personal life was less successful than his professional life. He was married four times, three of them ending in divorce. He had one daughter, Godela Orff, from his first marriage. Although estranged from his only child, he did keep in touch with her, composing several pieces for her. Godela later described their relationship as "difficult." In an interview, she once explained, "He had his life, and that was that" (Shamrock, 2007, p. 41). In 1960, he married his fourth wife, Liselotte Schmitz, and they remained together until his death from cancer on March 29, 1982. He was laid to rest at the Benedictine priory of Andechs, south of Munich, Germany — the very priory whence came the texts for Carmina Burana.