Carl Orff – March 29, 1982 was a 20th-century German composer, best known for his cantata Carmina Burana . In addition to his career as a composer, Orff developed an influential method of music education for children. Orff was born in Munich on July 10, 1895. His family was Bavarian and was active in the Army of the German Empire. Orff started studying the piano at the age of five, and he also took organ and cello lessons. However, he was more interested in composing original music than in studying to be a performer. Orff wrote and staged puppet shows for his family, composing music... for piano, violin, zither, and glockenspiel to accompany them. He had a short story published in a children's magazine in 1905 and started to write a book about nature. In his spare time he enjoyed collecting insects. By the time he was a teenager, Orff was writing songs, although he had not studied harmony or composition; his mother helped him set down his first works in musical notation. Orff wrote his own texts and he learned the art of composing, without a teacher, by studying classical masterworks on his own.
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| Birthdate: | July 10, 1895 |
| Birthplace: | Munich |
| Date of death: | March 29, 1982 |
| Also known as: | Orff, Carl |