Géry de Ghersem

Géry de Ghersem (also Géry Gersem) (1573 to 1575 – 25 May 1630) was a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance, active both in Spain at the court of Philip II and Philip III, and in his native Low Countries. He was a prolific and highly regarded composer at the time, but little of his work survives, almost all having been destroyed in the Lisbon earthquake and fire of 1755. Life Ghersem was born in Tournai, and received his boyhood musical training there, possibly under the direction of composer George de La Hèle. While still young, “between the ages of 7 and 12” according to the Habsburg chapel records, he was one of 14 boys brought to Spain to sing in the imperial chapel choir, the capilla flamenca. During this period, as during the previous two hundred years, the Low Countries provided a dependable source of talented young musicians for the choirs of kings and aristocrats in other parts of Europe. This practice was shortly to come to an end, as the last known group of choirboys from Flanders went to Spain in 1594. After coming to Spain, Ghersem may have worked again with La Hèle briefly, since he directed the choir in Madrid, but La Hèle died in 1586. Ghersem rose in the