André Mérineau

Mérineau, André

(Joseph-Henri) André Mérineau. Organist, teacher, b Montreal 5 Oct 1929; premier prix organ (CMM) 1950, premier prix harmony (CMM) 1952. He took piano lessons from Gilberte Martin and Alfred La Liberté and studied the organ at the CMM with Georges-Émile Tanguay and Conrad Bernier. In 1949 he won the Casavant Society prize and the Joseph-Bonnet medal. Awarded a Quebec government grant in 1953, he entered the Accademia Santa Cecilia in Rome; there he studied with Fernando Germani, organist at St Peter's Basilica, and was his assistant for five years. In 1957 he obtained his diplomas for organ and composition, and the Holy See awarded him the Latran Cross. He was a lecturer, summers 1953-7, at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena. In 1959 he returned to Rome on a Canada Council grant to study the works of Bach under Germani. While there he taught organ, harmony, and counterpoint at the Accademia Santa Cecilia. He has been the organist at several US and European churches, and at the Gesù Church and St-Vincent Ferrier Church in Montreal. In 1962 he began teaching organ, improvisation, and harmony at the CMM. He has given many recitals in Canada and abroad, and he toured the USSR in 1968, 1973, and 1980. In the French periodical Diapason (Oct 1972), Jean Gallois paid tribute to his solid technique and to the restraint, emotion, and inner sensibility with which he approached the pieces of Jehan Alain recorded at St-Eustache Church in Paris.

Writings

'Un organiste du Québec en URSS,' VM, 19, Mar 1971