Pierre Mercure

Pierre Mercure

Pierre Mercure, composer, producer, bassoonist, administrator (b at Montréal 21 Feb 1927; d accidentally near Avallon, France 29 Jan 1966). Mercure, always seeking a new, multimedia language, learned French music and became an orchestrator with Claude CHAMPAGNE. He studied in Paris, notably with Nadia Boulanger and Darius Milhaud and in 1951, in Tanglewood, Mass, was introduced to dodecaphony by Luigi Dallapiccola. Mercure was the first producer of TV music programs on Radio-Canada. Influenced by Pierre Schaeffer during a second stay in Europe, he turned to ELECTROACOUSTIC MUSIC and, after organizing the Semaine internationale de musique actuelle (1961), returned to Europe to study electronic music. He left a legacy of ballet music (eg, Structures métalliques I and II and Tétrachromie) and of chamber, electronic, vocal and orchestral music. His Cantate pour une joie has been performed several times, eg, during the Olympic Games in Montréal in 1976.