Ariel Kalma


Ariel Kalma was a French new-age composer and electronic musician.

Life and career

Kalma learned to play recorder and saxophone as a youth. He studied computer science in college, and while at university he met Salvatore Adamo, who soon hired Kalma into his touring band on a world tour as a saxophonist and flautist. While on the road with Adamo, he met Baden Powell, with whom he would collaborate in France and Germany in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Around this time, he made experimental tape pieces using his own recorded instruments, found sounds, church organs, and poetry.
In 1974 he took a one-way flight to India, learning rudimentary classical Indian music and developing an interest in meditative and drone music. He was also influenced by American minimalist music. In 1975, he recorded and self-released an album, Le Temps des Moissons while working at the GRM studio of INA Pierre Henry in Paris. His 1978 album Osmose features Borneo rainforest nature sounds recorded by Richard Tinti.
Kalma's output increased over the 1980s and 1990s, and his discography now runs to several dozen albums. In 2014, his 1970s work was collected by RVNG and a compilation, An Evolutionary Music, was released. This album reached #9 on the Billboard New Age albums chart in 2015.
In 2019 he visited Hydra Island and recorded an album with Gorkem Cen playing yaybahar at the Old Caroet Factory.
For over five decades he released LPs, cassettes, and CDs of solo compositions and collaborations that all live on his personal website and Bandcamp page.
Ariel Kalma died on 4 June 2025, at the age of 78, peacefully in the arms of his beloved son.

Albums

  • Le Temps des Moissons
  • Voyage méditatif au centre de la tête
  • Osmose
  • Interfréquence
  • Musique Pour Le Rêve et L'Amour
  • Open Like A Flute
  • Bindu
  • Tropical
  • Rainbow
  • Serenity
  • Flowing Dreams
  • Flute for the Soul
  • My Sax, my Love
  • In My Dreams
  • Endless Breath
  • Chansons d'Esprit - Poésie sonore *Flowing Dreams
  • Spirit Dancer
  • Galactica Electronica
  • Lazy Lizard
  • Osmose 2
  • Chillout India
  • Yo Yo A New Man
  • Yo Yo Homme Nouveau
  • Open Like a Flute, Vol 1+2
  • An Evolutionary Music: Original Recordings 1972-1979
  • FRKWYS Vol. 12: We Know Each Other Somehow
  • Meditation in the Forest
  • Réallusions
*