Victor Bouchard

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

Life

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

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

Several composers have written works for the duo, 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 in 1966, the couple was awarded the Prix Pierre- Mercure. Both in 1981 and 1985, Member Officer of the Order of Canada.

Bouchard was 1957-1959 president of the Jeunesse Musicales du Canada and in 1961 vice-president of the Académie de musique du Québec. From 1967 he was with the Ministry of Education of Quebec busy until 1971 and from 1978 to 1980 as Director General of the Conservatoire de musique du Québec, and in between as director of the music section. In addition to several chamber works (including a string quartet and Danse canadienne for violin and piano) composed Bouchard over a hundred edits French- Canadian folk songs that have been performed among others by Maureen Forrester, Gaston Germain, Jacques Labrecque and Bruno Laplante.

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