François-Xavier Mercier

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François-Xavier Mercier

François-Xavier Mercier (aka François-Xavier Merçay ; born August 13, 1867 in Québec , † December 22, 1932 ibid) was a Canadian singer, music teacher and composer.

Mercier sang in the Church of the Congregation of Notre-Dame from early childhood . A solo appearance at the Académie commerciale earned him a free place to study at this institution, and in 1891 he became an accounting teacher at the Collège Mont-St-Louis in Montreal. After his first training in Toronto with Adèle Lemaître , he appeared in Boston at the Castle Square Theater , opened an opera studio in Toronto and studied solfège in Paris from 1894 to 1899 with Jacques Bouhy and stage technology with T. Valdejo. In 1899 he made his debut at the Opèrea-Comique in Paris as Judas in Etienne Nicolas Méhul's opera Joseph .

In 1900 he left the Opèra-Comique. He has appeared in Bordeaux, Rouen and at the Royal Opera House alongside singers such as Emma Calvé , Marcel Journet , Nellie Melba , Pol Plançon , Antonio Scotti and Francesco Tamagno . Because of the death of his mother, he returned to Canada in 1905. He performed there in Toronto and Quebec before returning to Paris in late 1907. In the 1908/09 season he appeared at the opera houses of Constantine, Algiers and Oran.

After a series of opera and oratorio concerts at Queens Hall in London under the direction of Henry Wood and further tours through France and Algeria, he returned to Canada in 1913 with his wife, singer Isabelle de Besson . There he founded the Institut d'art vocal in 1914 . In 1931 he was made honorary president of the Association des chanteurs de Québec . He published a series of articles under the title Classement et pose de la voix for the magazine La Musique (1919) and the textbook Technique de musique vocale (1928) and in 1923 wrote his memoirs Souvenirs de ma carrière artistique . As a composer he has emerged with a number of songs such as Ce que je chante and France et Canada .

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personal data
SURNAME Mercier, François-Xavier
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Merçay, François-Xavier
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian singer, music educator and composer
DATE OF BIRTH August 13, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH Quebec City
DATE OF DEATH December 22, 1932
Place of death Quebec City