- Joseph Bonnet
Joseph Bonnet (
March 17 ,1884 -August 2 ,1944 ) was a Frenchcomposer andorganist .One of the major French
pipe organ players, Joseph Bonnet was born inBordeaux . He first studied with his father, an organist at St. Eulalie. At the age of 14, he became official organist, first at St. Nicholas and almost immediately at St. Michael. Bonnet also attended classes withAlexandre Guilmant at theConservatoire de Paris . A few years later he finished with a first prize and, in 1906 was selected to become the organist at St. Eustache, Paris. In 1911 he had the privilege of succeeding Guilmant as concert organist at the Conservatoire de Paris.On January 28, 1917 he moved to the United States, where he gave more than 100 concerts around the country until 1919. He was elected an honorary member of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia music fraternity in June 1917. Bonnet founded the organ department of the
Eastman School of Music in 1921. He composed a large number of organ pieces and compiled the six-volume "Historical Organ Recitals".A few years later, Bonnet returned to Paris, where
Denise Restout attended one of his master classes in 1933. Four years later, he tookLouis Vierne 's position as organ teacher and specialist at L’École César-Franck.In 1940, due to the outbreak of World War II, he was forced to leave France and returned to North America. He was organist at the
Worcester Art Museum 1942-1943 and was appointed professor at the Conservatoire musique du Québec à Montréal in 1943. In Paris Bonnet had taught a student from Québec namedConrad Bernier who studied with him 1923-26, who eventually became one of the premier advocates of French organ music in the United States as both professor of organ and head of the Organ Department atCatholic University of America .Bonnet died on August 2, 1944, while vacationing in St. Luce-sur-Mer, near
Rimouski, Quebec . He is buried at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint-Benoît-du-Lac, near Magog (Québec).ources
* William Self, For Mine Eyes Have Seen (Worcester, Massachusetts: Worcester Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, 1990)
External links
* [http://www.josephbonnet.org/ Joseph Bonnet Association]
*IMSLP|id=Bonnet%2C_Joseph_Elie_Georges_Marie* [http://hdl.handle.net/1802/4435 Poèmes d’automne : trois morceaux de concert ou de salon pour grand-orgue, op. 3] (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)
* [http://hdl.handle.net/1802/4436 Variations de concert : pour grand-orgue, op 1] (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)
* [http://hdl.handle.net/1802/4439 Historical organ-recitals : in six volumes / collected, edited and annotated by Joseph Bonnet] (From the Sibley Music Library Digital Score Collection)
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