Gérard Caron

Caron, Gérard

Gérard Caron. Organist, pianist, b St-Martin-de-Beauce, Que, 2 Apr 1916, d Montreal 19 Jan 1986. At the age of nine he became organist at the church in Mansonville, Que, where his parents lived. At the Conservatoire national of Montreal and the University of Montreal, where he enrolled in 1933, he studied organ with Eugène Lapierre and Raoul Paquet and piano and composition with Albertine Morin-Labrecque. Later he became regular organist of the churches of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires and St-Jean-Berchmans in Montreal. On a grant from the Quebec government in 1942 he worked in New York with Charles-Marie Courboin, and in 1944 he became organist-choirmaster of the French church of St Vincent de Paul in New York. He also was Courboin's assistant at St Patrick's Cathedral. He decided to make New York his home in 1945. In 1952 he went to Rome to work with Fernando Germani. He performed in Florence, Turin, and Rome and trained for a period at the Accademia Chigiana of Siena. Caron gave many recitals in Montreal under the aegis of the Casavant Society, and played also in Quebec City and several other cities in Canada and the USA. As a pianist he frequently accompanied singers, including Pierrette Alarie and Léopold Simoneau. Caron was organist-choirmaster at the French-Canadian church of St John the Baptist in New York from 1964.until his return to Canada in 1984.