François-Joseph Gossec (January 17, 1734 – February 16, 1829) was a French composer of operas, string quartets, symphonies, and choral works. The son of a small farmer, Gossec was born at the village of Vergnies, then a French exclave in the Austrian Netherlands, now in Belgium. Showing an early taste for music, he became a choir-boy in Antwerp. He went to Paris in 1751 and was taken on by the composer Jean-Philippe Rameau. He followed Rameau as the conductor of a private orchestra kept by the fermier général Le Riche de La Poupelinière, a wealthy amateur and patron of music.

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