Françoys Bernier

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Françoys Joseph Arthur Maurice Bernier (12 July 1927 – 3 February 1993) was a Canadian

music educator. He served as the music director of the Montreal Festivals from 1956 to 1960 and was an active conductor and a producer for CBC Radio during the 1950s and early 1960s. He was the General Director of the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec from 1960 to 1966 and then the orchestra's Music Director from 1966 to 1968. He was also active as a teacher of conducting at a number of universities, notably serving as the first director of the Music Department at the University of Ottawa.[1]

Family background and education

Bernier was born into a prominent family of musicians in

music critic Maurice Bernier, the brother of cellist Pierre Bernier and pianist Gabrielle Bernier, and the nephew of pianist Gabrielle Bernier and of keyboardist and composer Conrad Bernier. His earliest musical education was with his grandfather, keyboardist and composer Joseph-Arthur Bernier
.

Bernier received his general education from the Séminaire de Québec, where he also studied music from 1939 to 1947. From 1945 to 1950 he attended courses at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Québec, where he was a pupil of Françoise Aubut, Henri Gagnon, Hélène Landry, Ria Lenssens, and Father Alphonse Tardif. In 1949–1950 he pursued further studies at the Université Laval with Lucien Brochu and Marius Cayouette. He later studied music analysis and conducting with Sergiu Celibidache in Siena and Hermann Scherchen in Salzburg in 1962–1963 through grants awarded to him by the Canada Council.

Career

In 1950 Bernier joined the teaching staff of

Gravelbourg, Saskatchewan, where he remained for over two years. During that time he also worked as the first program director of the local radio station CFRG when it opened in June 1952. He left Gravelbourg in 1953 to become a producer of music programs for Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
in Montreal.

Working for the French-language side of the CBC, Bernier was particularly active with the

Histoire du soldat (1955), Maurice Ravel's L'enfant et les sortilèges (1956, 1957), Charles Gounod's Faust (1957), Giacomo Puccini's Madama Butterfly (1958), and Jules Massenet's Manon
(1960), among others.

In 1956 Bernier was appointed music director of the

Orchestre des Concerts Colonne and the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine
.

From 1959 to 1964 Bernier worked on the faculty of the

Encyclopedia of Music in Canada. He was appointed the first director of the Music Department at the University of Ottawa in 1969, a post he held through 1976. He remained on the UO's faculty until 1992. In 1977 he founded le Domaine Forget
, a summer arts festival and school for music, dance, and theatre. He served as the general and artistic director of the school up until his death in Quebec City in 1993 at the age of 65.

Awards and honours

In 1992 Bernier was awarded the François Samson Prize and was honoured with an award from the Orchestre symphonique de Québec. In 1993 he was posthumously named a

Chevalier of the National Order of Quebec
and the University of Ottawa established a scholarship in his name. In 1996 Le Domaine Forget built a new concert hall which they named in his honour.

References

  1. ^ "Françoys Bernier". The Canadian Encyclopedia. Retrieved 2021-04-03.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Françoys_Bernier&oldid=1216688454"