Born in Huê (Centre of Vietnam) in 1933, Tôn That Tiet came to Paris in 1958 to study composition at the French National Conservatory of Music. He attended Jean Rivier and André Jolivet classes for composition. He was at first drawn to the serial technique but from 1966 on he turned to another mode of inspiration.

Of André Olivet he said : "As a professor, he has never tried to influence me, nor push me toward any special kind of style. Our professor-student relationship was of a spiritual order. Yet through his suggestion and what Rivier had said, I came to realize that it was in the oriental way of thinking that I would find my style in music. I owe to Rivier the language and the shaping of my music which, as Joliver has said, should be "a mean to express ideas and not an aim in itself.".

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