Jean-Eudes Vaillancourt

Vaillancourt, Jean-Eudes

Jean-Eudes Vaillancourt. Pianist, conductor, teacher, composer, b Port-Alfred (now La Baie), near Chicoutimi, Que, 16 Aug 1940; B MUS (Laval) 1955. He studied piano 1956-9 at the CMM with Yvonne Hubert and 1959-61 in New York with Rosina Lhévinne. He taught 1958-66 at the Institut des arts du Saguenay and founded and directed the Sine Nomine Choir (a mixed choir of 80 voices) and La Chanterelle (a 60-voice children's choir). He took conducting courses 1966-7 with Tullio Serafin in Rome. On a scholarship awarded by the MACQ for his stage cantata L'Orphalisiaque he worked 1967-8 with Louis Fourestier in Paris. He taught 1969-70 at the École de musique Ste-Croix in Ville St-Laurent, Montreal, and conducted a 16-piece string orchestra at the Vaisseau d'or restaurant, giving two concerts of classical music each evening. In 1970 he began touring as a soloist and as accompanist to the cellist Klaus-Peter Hahn. He has accompanied singers, including Claude Corbeil, Bruno Laplante, Nicole Lorange, and his sister Pauline Vaillancourt, with whom he recorded an LP (RCI 631).

Vaillancourt's frequent appearances as conductor of the MSO, the Quebec Symphony Orchestra, and the Orchestre métropolitain have been well received by the critics, and he has conducted radio and TV concerts for both the French and the English networks of the CBC. In 1974 he began teaching at the University of Montreal, where, in April 1977, he conducted Stravinsky's Les Noces. He has given classes in chamber music there, including the Ensemble Claviers, and he has created the Faculty of Music Orchestra, the Tea for Two... Pianos recital series, and the Chambré Ensemble.

Besides the Chant de la Transfiguration (a work written for mixed choir, organ, and narrator), Vaillancourt has composed piano pieces, some song cycles, and some film music.