Joseph Maurice Ravel | Profession: Composer, pianist, conductor | Nationality: French | Born: March 7, 1875 | Birthplace: Ciboure, near Saint-Jean-de-Luz, France | Generation: Late 19th Century / Belle Époque | Chinese Zodiac: Pig | Zodiac Sign: Pisces | Age in 2026: 151 | Marital Status: Never married | Children: None | Description: Ravel is celebrated as one of France’s defining musical architects, crafting works of extraordinary precision, color, and structural clarity that reshaped orchestration and modern musical imagination; internationally revered in his lifetime, he balanced elegance with rhythmic bite, producing compositions whose craftsmanship made them staples of concert repertoire and popular culture alike; his final years became a tragic emblem of creativity trapped by neurological decline—his musical imagination reportedly remained vivid even as language and motor abilities failed—turning his late-life silence into one of music history’s most haunting stories; Cause of Death: After progressive neurological illness, he underwent brain surgery in 1937, lapsed into a coma, and died in December 1937.