Alexis Contant

Joseph Pierre Alexis Contant (12 November 1858 – 28 November 1918) was a Canadian composer, organist, pianist, and music educator. Trained as a pianist, he became one of the first Canadians to compose large-scale choral and orchestral works, in spite of the difficulty of finding suitable teachers of musical composition. His younger years were spent mostly in teaching, family, and work as a church organist, and many of his compositions were written later in life. Early life Contant was born in Montreal, the son of two amateur musicians. His father was a violinist who was involved in a number of community ensembles and his mother was a piano and voice student of Emma Albani. His younger siblings, Marie and Joseph-Albert, also became musicians. All three children had their initial musical lessons from their mother. At the age of 11, Contant became a pupil of organist and pianist Joseph-A. Fowler and two years later gave his first public recital. At the age of 17 he became a student of Calixa Lavallée, who had just returned from Paris. Contant himself wanted to pursue studies in Europe, but his father forbade him to go in fear that European society might be detrimental to Alexis’s reli