Gaston Allaire

Joseph Georges-Émile Gaston Allaire (18 June 1916 – 15 January 2011) was a Canadian musicologist, organist, pianist, composer, and music educator of American birth. His compositional output includes several preludes for organ, an organ work on French carols, some motets and other choral works, a communion service, a prelude and fugue for string orchestra, and a polyphonic mass. He also wrote Suite laurentienne for orchestra from which the Poème and the Menuet were premiered by the Quebec Symphony Orchestra in 1949, and composed the music for the 1953 film The Man on the Beach. His Marche (1964) and Petite Suite (1965) were both written for the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps Band. Early life and education Born in Berlin, New Hampshire to parents Marie and Xavier, Allaire moved with his family to Danville, Quebec when he was just two years old. His mother was a homemaker and his father was the station master for the Danville train station. The eldest of 9 children, he began studying the organ and piano as a child. He began professional studies in the organ in Victoriaville in 1934, continuing with his education in Quebec City in 1936. He entered the Conservatoire national de musique i