Victor Bouchard

Victor Bouchard (born April 11, 1926 in Sainte-Claire-de-Dorchester / Québec , † March 22, 2011 in Québec ) was a Canadian pianist and composer .

Life

Bouchard received his first musical training from 1941 to 1946 at the Collège de Lévis with Father Alphonse Tardif . He then studied harmony with Tardif, piano with Hélène Landry and music theory with Françoise Aubut at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec . In 1950 he married the pianist Renée Morisset .

From 1950 to 1953 Bouchard studied in Paris, where he was a student of Alfred Cortot and Antoine Reboulot . Since 1952 he has performed as a piano duo with his wife. Bouchard and Morisset made several tours through Canada from the mid-1950s and also performed in Belgium, Holland and Italy. After the debut at Carnegie Hall , he made numerous appearances in the USA between 1965 and 1970.

Several composers wrote works for the duo, such as Clermont Pépin Nombres for two pianos and orchestra (1963), Roger Matton a concerto (1964) and Jacques Hétu a sonata. For the recording of Matton's Concerto, the couple was awarded the Prix ​​Pierre-Mercure in 1966 . Both became members of the Order of Canada in 1981 and officers in 1985 .

Bouchard was president of the Jeunesses musicales du Canada from 1957 to 1959 and became vice-president of the Académie de musique du Québec in 1961 . From 1967 he was employed at the Ministry of Culture of Québec, until 1971 and from 1978 to 1980 as General Director of the Conservatoire de musique du Québec, in between as Director of the Music Section. In addition to some chamber music works (including a string quartet and Danse canadienne for violin and piano) Bouchard composed more than one hundred arrangements of French-Canadian folk songs , which were performed by Maureen Forrester , Gaston Germain , Jacques Labrecque and Bruno Laplante , among others .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Le pianiste Victor Bouchard s'éteint à la veille de ses 85 ans , Le Soleil (Quebec), March 24, 2011. Accessed March 24, 2011.