| Lavigueur, Louis.
Conductor, b Quebec City 19 Oct 1949; B MUS (Laval) 1974, M
MUS (Laval) 1977. He was introduced to choral conducting at 16
when he was appointed assistant director of the college choir
where he studied. He subsequently studied conducting at Laval
University with Armand
Ferland and Chantal
Masson and at McGill
University with Alexander Brott.
A Canada
Council grant allowed him to study privately 1976-7 with
Franz-Paul
Decker. At the same time he was artistic director 1971-8
of the choir Les
Rhapsodes (with whom he recorded an LP) and of its chamber
orchestra. In 1977 he won the third prize at the International
Competition of Young Conductors of Besançon, France. He also
attended numerous sessions in Europe and in the USA during
summer academies, notably with Pierre Dervaux and Helmuth
Rilling. In 1978 he became assistant conductor of the OJQ
and was concurrently artistic director of the
Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Youth Orchestra and guest
conductor of the Kitchener-Waterloo
Symphony Orchestra (1979-81). From 1979 to 1984 he was the
artistic director of the Elgar
Choir of Montreal. He became the choir director and
assistant orchestra conductor at the CMM
in 1980, and was appointed artistic director of the Montreal
Symphony Youth Orchestra in 1986 and of the Orchestre de
chambre de Hull in 1990. In 1985 he began to conduct the Grand
orchestre de saxophones de Montréal and the orchestras and
choirs of the Pierre Laporte Secondary School. In 1984 he
founded the Ensemble vocal Louis-Lavigueur. He has been a
guest conductor with the Kingston, Montreal, Quebec, and Sherbrooke
Symphony Orchestras, and the Orchestre philharmonique des
pays de la Loire, France, among others. He conducted his vocal
ensemble, a choir from the Pierre Laporte school, and an
instrumental ensemble on a CD devoted to Hector Gratton's
L'Imagerie with soloists Marie
Laferrière, Chantal Rioux, Normand Richard, and Bernard
Levasseur (1990, CBC SMCD-5109). See also Discography for
Orchestre métropolitain.
Lavigueur is the great-grandson of the violinist and
composer Célestin
Lavigueur.
Author Jean-Pascal Vachon
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