Majoie Hajary (sometimes spelled Majoye Hajary) was born in South America in 1921 In 1937, at the age of 16, Hajary went to study at the
Amsterdam Conservatory where she studied piano with Nelly Wagenaar and composition with
Hendrik Andriessen. In 1941, Margot Vos's booklet
Sun Rays was published, for which Hajary composed the music and drew the illustrations. She graduated with honors as a performing pianist in June 1942. In 1943, she won the Conservatory's first prize for her composition
Hindoustani Fantaisie, which was performed by the
Concertgebouw Orchestra. She also regularly visited her native country of Suriname. In 1949, she moved to Paris to study composition with
Louis Aubert and
Nadia Boulanger. She started transcribing
ragas and then went on to write them herself. Examples are
New Sound From India (1967),
Requiem pour Mahatma Gandhi (1968) and
Chants du Gita Govinda (1974). In the 1960s she composed
Da Pinawiki, an oratorio about the Passion of Christ. The text was based on her grandmother's Surinamese Bible and the oratorio was opened in Easter week from 1974 performed in several large churches of Paramaribo. In addition to her performances, Hajary was also a writer and translated the work of others. She provided
Max Havelaar's first translation into French. On 25 August 2017, Hajary died at home at the age of 96, and she was buried in the Old Cemetery of Neuilly-sur-Seine, near Paris. == Primary compositions ==