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Born in Paris, Edgard Varèse (1883-1965) first studied under D'Indy, Roussel and Widor at the Schola Cantorum and the Paris Conservatory. Moving to Berlin in 1907, Varèse befriended Busoni and was struck by his "Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music," a text which the younger composer would cite as an inspiration throughout his life. In 1915, Varèse moved to New York, co-founding the International Composers Guild (1922) and the Pan-American Society (1926) to promote contemporary music. The move to America was also symbolic of a new beginning for Varèse's music, where he would produce an unique and influential series of works starting with Amériques of 1922. Most of his previous compositions were either destroyed by himself or lost in an accidental fire, depending on different accounts.