Claude Lagacé

Claude Lagacé received his training in Quebec City from Henri Gagnon and Germaine Malépart and in Hartford, Conn, from Clarence Watters. During his stay in the USA (1944-61), he lived 1946-50 in Holyoke, Mass, 1950-4 in Woonsocket, RI, and also in Toledo, O, where he was organist-choirmaster of the cathedral 1954-61 and taught at the Gregorian Institute of America, receiving from the latter a diploma in 1960. His pedagogical treatise Sixteenth-Century Counterpoint was published by the institute in 1958. Upon his return to Quebec City in 1961 he became organist at Notre-Dame Basilica, succeeding Henri Gagnon, and joined the staff of Laval University, as assistant director of the music school 1971-8; he also directed its school music program and contributed to the writing of the university's Cahiers d'information sur la recherche en éducation musicale. In 1984 he premiered Roger Matton'sTu es Petrus in Notre-Dame Basilica in Quebec City in the presence of Pope John Paul II. Lagacé performed on the CBC programs'Récitals d'orgue' and'Tribune de l'orgue'. In 1974, he recorded Marius Cayouette's Hymne pascal on the LP Hommage à Henri Gagnon (Alpec A-75008).