Louisa Paquin

Paquin, Louisa

Louisa (Sister Marie-Valentine) Paquin. Lexicographer, teacher, b St-Barthélémy, Que, 23 Jan 1865, d Lachine, near Montreal, 9 Jun 1950; honD MUS (Montreal) 1937. After attending the local boarding school, where she received some music training, she entered the religious community of the Sisters of Ste-Anne and took her first vows in 1887. In 1906 she obtained a diploma from the Chicago Cons after taking correspondence courses in piano for two years from William Sherwood. She taught piano, harp, violin, and guitar in convents in Montreal and later in British Columbia. She was made responsible for music studies in all of the schools of her community in Canada and the USA and reshaped the curriculum; in 1928 the community received a charter from the federal government authorizing it to grant diplomas. She was the founder, and the director 1937-45, of the École supérieure de musique de Lachine. She compiled and in 1922 published anonymously (under the name of her religious community) a Dictionnaire biographique de musiciens; a second edition, entitled Dictionnaire biographique des musiciens canadiens (Lachine 1935, reprinted Ann Arbor, Mich, 1972), was devoted exclusively to Canadian musicians and was the first work of its kind to appear in Canada. In the preface Frédéric Pelletier described it as 'the first memorial to our musicians of the past and a mine of information for those of today.' Paquin also wrote an educational work, La Musique rendue facile (Lachine 1933).