Eric Alfred Leslie Satie who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. Satie was a colourful figure in the early 20th-century Parisian avant-garde.

His work was a precursor to later artistic movements such as minimalism, Surrealism, repetitive music, and the Theatre of the Absurd. An eccentric, Satie was introduced as a “gymnopedist” in 1887, shortly before writing his most famous compositions, the Gymnopedies.