Organist René Saorgin was a prominent player in the last half of the 20th century. He was especially associated with the south of France, where he rediscovered and supervised the restoration of many historic organs. Saorgin was born in Cannes on October 31, 1928. Notably, he was self-taught on the organ at first. Saorgin studied the organ at the Nice Conservatory and then moved to the Paris Conservatory, studying the organ with Gaston Litaize and composition with Maurice Duruflé and Noël Gallon. He also took organ lessons from Duruflé, and he finished his education at the Chigiana Academy in Siena, Italy, where he worked with Fernando Germani. From 1951 to 1954, Saorgin served as organist at the church of Saint-Pierre de Montmartre in Paris. In 1954, he returned to the south of France and spent the rest of his life there, taking a post as professor of organ at the Nice Conservatory (now the National Regional Conservatory of Nice). He remained there until 1996. Saorgin began to gain international attention with a first prize in the organ competition at the Ghent International Organ Festival in Belgium. He also served for many years as organist at the church of Saint Jean-Baptiste du Vœu in Nice, and from 1969 to 1971, he was director of the Ajaccio Conservatory on the French island of Corsica. Saorgin was especially noted for his work in the field of organ restoration. He joined the organ section of France's Higher Commission for Historic Monuments, which put him in the position of being able to organize the restoration of historic organs he rescued from obscurity. These included organs at Villefranche-sur-Mer, L'Escarène and Clans in France, and several towns and on the Italian side of the Roya Valley along the French-Italian border. From 1984 to 2005, he served as titulaire, or permanent administrator, of the historic organs at the Cathedral of Monaco. He issued a complete cycle of Buxtehude's organ music on the Harmonia Mundi label as well as other albums on Harmonia Mundi between the late 1980s and the 2000s decade, including Orgues de Provence in 2007. He moved to Newton Classics for the album Italian Organ Masters in 2013. Saorgin died in Nice on December 16, 2015, at age 87.