Jean Laurendeau

Laurendeau, Jean

(Marie François) Jean Laurendeau. Clarinetist, ondist, teacher, b Montreal 11 Aug 1938; premier prix clarinet (CMM) 1959, premier prix clarinet (Rouen Conservatory) 1964, premier prix chamber music (Rouen Conservatory) 1965, licence de concert (École normale de musique, Paris) 1965. After studying clarinet 1950-9 at the CMM with Joseph Moretti and Rafael Masella, he worked 1959-60 at the New England Conservatory, Boston, with Gino Cioffi and then returned to Canada, where he played 1960-2 in the Quebec Symphony Orchestra. He continued his training 1962-3 in Paris with Ulysse Delécluse. He met Jacques Lancelot at the Académie international de Nice in the summer of 1963 and worked with him 1963-5 at the Rouen Conservatory. He also studied the ondes Martenot 1962-5 with Jeanne Loriod at the École normale de musique in Paris and 1964-5 with Maurice Martenot at the Paris Conservatory, where he received a medal in this subject.

Returning to Canada in August 1965, Laurendeau began a career as a chamber musician and a soloist on the clarinet and the ondes. He and the pianist Louise Forand toured Canada several times 1965-9 for the JMC (YMC), and Yugoslavia in 1970 accompanied by the percussionist Vincent Dionne. This trio premiered Prolifération, a work it had commissioned from Claude Vivier.

Laurendeau's performances on the ondes Martenot include a number of North American performances of Messiaen's Turangalîla-Symphonie, with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, the MSO, the TS, and orchestras in Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Miami, Pittsburgh, and San Francisco, among others. After participating in 1977 in Musicanada as a member of the Quebec Woodwind Quintet, he toured Germany, Belgium, and France with the SMCQ Ensemble. He was a regular performer with that ensemble and also served 1968-72 as a member of the SMCQ board and 1972-5 as an adviser. He has played on CBC radio and TV, at the University of Montreal's Nocturnales, and for NMC in Toronto. In addition to the premieres of Micheline Coulombe Saint-Marcoux'sSéquences (1973) with Suzanne Binet-Audet and Robert Leroux and Petros Shoujounian's Hour (1988), he also gave the Canadian premiere of Marcel Landowski's Concerto for ondes Martenot, strings, and percussion (1985) with the Trois-Rivières Symphony Orchestra under Gilles Bellemare. Jacques Hétu dedicated his Concerto for ondes Martenot and orchestra (1990) to him.

Laurendeau taught at the JMC Orford Art Centre for several summers and in 1970 began teaching clarinet and ondes Martenot at the CMM, thus establishing the first ondes class in the country. In 1976 he founded the Ensemble d'ondes de Montréal. His pupils include Nicolas Desjardins (clarinet) and Marie Bernard and Johanne Goyette (ondes).

See also Arthur Laurendeau (his grandfather).