Born in Paris, Amy entered the Conservatoire de Paris in 1954, where he was taught and influenced by Olivier Messiaen and Darius Milhaud and studied piano with Yvonne Loriod and fugue with Simone Plé-Caussade.
A year later Boulez commissioned from him a work called Mouvements, which was performed in Darmstadt by the Orchestre du Domaine musical.
From 1958 to 1961 he attended the Darmstädter Ferienkurse given by Karlheinz Stockhausen,[1] and developed a style highly influenced by the trend of serialism.
In 1962 Jean-Louis Barrault named him adjunct music director of the Odéon Theater in Paris.
In 1984, Amy succeeded Pierre Cochereau as Director of the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique at Lyon, while continuing to compose music.