Michel Longtin

Michel Longtin, composer, teacher (b at Montréal 20 May 1946). Michel Longtin's main teachers were André Prévost and Serge Garant at the Université de Montréal, and Paul Pedersen, Bengt Hambraeus and Alcides Lanza at McGill University. He began teaching at the Université de Montréal in 1973 and taught there full-time from 1987 to 2006. He was a founding member of the Association pour la création et la recherche électroacoustiques du Québec in 1977.

Though once known for his electroacoustic music, Longtin has - since the 1980s - dedicated his efforts mainly to acoustic instrumental composition. He draws on an impressive array of compositional genres from mathematical models to film music, and unifies the whole through the force of his imagination, expressed in his music's emotional power and often highly personal nature.

Longtin's electroacoustic works Rituel II and Mi e meta were performed at Place des Arts in 1972 by the Nouvelle-Aire dance company. His chamber work Pohjatuuli, hommage à Sibelius was premiered in Toronto in 1984 by the ensemble of the Société de Musique Contemporaine du Québec, the Orchestre Metropolitain premiered Autour d'Ainola in 1987, I Musici de Montréal premiered Solitudes in 1994 and the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal gave the first performance of his orchestral work La Route des pélerins reclusin 1985 and the monumental Quaternions in 2003. In 1986 Pohjatuuli won the Jules-Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. Also renowned for his pedagogical achievements, Michel Longtin received the Prix d'excellence en enseignement from the Université de Montréal in 1992. He retired from teaching full-time in 2006.