Alexandre Tansman was born in 1897 in Łódź, Poland. During that time the country did not exist as a nation, being part of Tsarist Russia. He was born in a wealthy family and he began his first musical studies at the Łódź Conservatory, but his doctoral study was in law at the University of Warsaw. Shortly after completing his studies, he moved to Paris where his musical ideas were accepted and encouraged by people like Igor Stravinsky and Maurice Ravel who had a strong influence on his style, a place opposed to the more conservative musical climate in his native Poland. While in Paris, Tansman associated with a crowd of foreign-born musicians known as the École de Paris; t...