Serge Garant

Albert Antonio Serge Garant (born September 22, 1929 in Québec , † November 1, 1986 in Sherbrooke , Québec ) was a Canadian composer and conductor .

Life

As a teenager, Serge Garant played the clarinet in the Orchester symphonique de Sherbrooke and saxophone in various jazz ensembles. From 1946 to 1950 he studied piano with Sylvio Lacharité and harmony with Paul-Marcel Robidoux . In 1948 he went to Montreal to take piano lessons from Yvonne Hubert and composition lessons from Claude Champagne . During this time his first compositions were written. For the Fantaisie for clarinet and piano he received the Association of Amateur Bands Prize in 1950 , which gave him a six-week study visit to the New YorkerJuilliard School of Music made possible.

Garant was interested in the works of contemporary composers at an early stage and performed piano compositions by Schönberg in 1950 . From 1951 to 1952 he stayed in Paris , where he studied with Olivier Messiaen and Andrée Vaurabourg-Honegger and where he met Karlheinz Stockhausen and Pierre Boulez .

On his return to Canada, Garant played as a jazz pianist in Sherbrooke, but soon went to Montreal, where he took counterpoint lessons with Jocelyne Binet and in 1954 joined forces with François Morel and Gilles Tremblay to perform works by Boulez, Messiaen and Webern . In the following year the group, from which the group Musique de notre temps emerged in 1956 , performed Garants Nucléogame 'In memoriam Anton Webern' , the first work for tape and instrumentalists in Canada. In addition, Garant worked as a piano accompanist, conductor and music critic.

In his Pièces pour quatuor , Garant experimented with the technique of aleatory . His works were increasingly performed on the radio, and in 1961 Mauricio Kagel conducted his composition Anerca at the International Week of Contemporary Music in Montreal. The Orchester symphonique de Québec performed Ouranos , the Orchester symphonique de Sherbrooke the Ennéade , and in 1965 the pianist Claude Helffer played Asymétries No. 1 in Paris.

With the performance of the composition Loving by Raymond Murray Schafer on CBC Television in 1966, Garant established himself as a conductor of contemporary music. Over the years he has conducted world premieres of works by musicians such as Robert Aitken , Serge Arcuri , Norma Beecroft , Allan Gordon Bell , Denys Bouliane , John Burke , Gabriel Charpentier , Brian Cherney , Yves Daoust , Marcelle Deschênes , José Evangelista , Michel Gonneville , Denis Gougeon , Jacques Gouin , Bengt Hambraeus , Hugh Hartwell , John Hawkins , Jacques Hétu , Richard Hunt , Otto Joachim , Alain Lalonde , Rémi Lapointe , Michel Longtin , Alexina Louie , Bruce Mather , François Morel, John Oliver , Jean Papineau-Couture , Clermont Pépin , John Rea , Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux , Donald Steven , Gilles Tremblay, Pierre Trochu , Michel Vinet and Claude Vivier .

In 1966, Garant became musical director of the Société de musique contemporaine du Québec (SMCQ). He conducted the ensemble on regular tours in Canada and Europe until 1986, the year of his death. Since 1967 he has taught composition at the Université de Montréal . His best-known students were Ginette Bellavance , Walter Boudreau , Marcelle Deschênes , Richard Grégoire , Michel Longtin and François Tousignant .

In addition to his work as a conductor, teacher and composer, Garant presented the Musique de notre siècle series on Radio Canada from 1971 to 1986 . He has received numerous awards: in 1979 he became Officer of the Ordre du Canada , 1984 Musician of the Year of the Canadian Music Council and 1986 member of the Société royale du Canada .

Works

• Concerts sur terre for soprano and piano, 1951
• Pièce pour piano No. 1 , 1953
• Caprices for soprano and piano, 1954
• Musique pour la mort d'un poète for piano and string orchestra, 1954
• Musique rituelle for piano, 1954
• Variations pour piano , 1954
• Nucléogame for six instruments and tape, 1955
• Asymétries No. 1 for piano, 1958
• Asymétries No.2 for clarinet and piano, 1959
• Anerca for soprano and orchestra, 1961
• Cage d'oiseau , for soprano and orchestra, based on a poem by Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau , 1962
• Pièce pour piano No. 2: Cage d'oiseau , 1962
• Ouranos for orchestra, 1963
• Ennéade for orchestra, 1964
• Phrases I for contralto, piano and percussion, 1967
• Amuya for orchestra, 1968
• Jeu à quatre for four instrumental groups, 1968
• Phrases II , based on a text by Che Guevara , for two orchestras, 1968
• Offrande I "Cérémonial du corps" , 1969
• Offrande II for large orchestra, 1970
• Offrande III , 1971
• Circuits I for six percussionists, 1972
• Circuits II for ensemble, 1972
• Circuit III for eighteen musicians, 1973
• … Chants d'amours for soprano, contralto, baritone and ensemble, 1975
• Rivages on a text by Alain Grandbois for baritone and ensemble, 1976
• Quintets , 1978
• Plages , 1981

Filmography

• 1964: All in all (À tout prendre)
• 1969: Vertige (short film)

Web links

• Serge Garant at the Internet Movie Database (English)