Claude Lavoie

Lavoie, Claude

Claude Lavoie. Organist, teacher, composer, b Rivière-du-Loup, Que, 19 Jul 1918. He began studying piano and organ in 1933 at the Collège de Lévis with Father Alphonse Tardif. A winner in 1942 of the Prix d'Europe, he studied 1942-5 at the Longy School in Boston with Nadia Boulanger, E. Power Biggs, and Melville Smith and at the New England Cons in Boston with Francis Findlay. In 1950-1 he worked in Paris under André Marchal, Gaston Litaize, and Simone Plé-Caussade. He was an organist first in Boston and then at Beauport, near Quebec City, and served 1959-74 at Saints-Martyrs-Canadiens Church in Quebec City. His virtuoso career includes more than 200 concerts as soloist and with orchestra in Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick, and the USA, particularly in Boston. Between 1938 and 1969 he inaugurated nearly 30 Canadian organs, including the Casavant instruments in the Moncton Cathedral in 1956 and the Cathedral of Notre-Dame-du-Cap, Que, in 1965. He taught 1952-69 at the CMQ and trained such fine organists as Denis Bédard, Jeannine Bégin, Antoine Bouchard, Sylvain Doyon, Richard Gagné, Gérard Gagnon, Noëlla Genest, Jacques Girard, Robert Girard, Jacques Montgrain, and Richard Paré. By his skilful improvisations, his compositions, and his lively and colourful interpretations, Lavoie has helped to stimulate interest in organ music in Quebec. Through the foundation that bears his name and to which has has generously contributed, he established in 1989 the organ competition Concours d'orgue Claude-Lavoie.