Édouard Woolley

Woolley, Édouard

Édouard (Joseph) Woolley. Tenor, teacher, actor, composer, b Port-au-Prince, Haiti, 31 Mar 1916, naturalized Canadian 1958, d Miami, Fla, 22 Dec 1991; D MUS (Montreal) 1947. In Port-au-Prince he studied voice with Élisabeth de Pesquidoux-Mahy and Henriette Perret-Duplessis, acting with Raoul Nargys, German repertoire with Werner Jaegerhuber, and piano and harmony with Carmen Brouard. He was a choirmaster before moving to Montreal in 1938. He continued his voice studies there with Salvator Issaurel 1938-44 and opened his own studio in 1942. His pupils included Joseph Rouleau and André Turp. At the Conservatoire national in Montreal he studied organ with Eugène Lapierre and piano with Edmond Trudel. His doctoral thesis was entitled 'La phonétique appliquée à l'art du chant.' He made his debut with the Variétes lyriques in Hahn's operetta Ciboulette in 1942 and in his five seasons with that company took a number of roles, notably in Bazin's Le Voyage en Chine and Oscar Straus' Three Waltzes. He also sang or acted in several CBC programs and took several supporting roles on stage and film as well as TV. Woolley was the founder and artistic director of the Opéra national du Québec 1948-52. He taught art history 1967-81 at the Vieux-Montréal Cegep, after which he retired. He was director 1971-5 of the Cons national. He composed masses for three voices and for four voices, some songs, and a few instrumental works, including Sous les palmiers (ca 1958), a suite for violin and piano. Mazoumbel (revised 1979), a movement from the suite, was performed in Montreal in 1979 during a concert of Haitian music.