Jacques Casterède was born in Paris in 1926. He entered the Paris Conservatoire where he studied composition with Tony Aubin and Olivier Messiaen. At the conservatoire Casterède won first prize in piano, chamber music, harmony, composition and musical analysis before going on to win the coveted Prix De Rome in 1953, which entitled him to a four year stay at the Medici Villa in Rome. In 1960 he joined the staff of the Paris Conservatoire, first as a theory teacher, then as a teacher of musical analysis and finally, in 1988, as a professor of composition.