Jean Guillou

Jean Victor Arthur Guillou (18 April 1930 – 26 January 2019) was a French composer, organist, pianist, and pedagogue. Principal Organist at Saint Eustache in Paris, from 1963 to 2015, he was widely known as a composer of instrumental and vocal music focused on the organ, as an improviser, and as an adviser to organ builders. For several decades he held regular master classes in Zurich and in Paris. Career Guillou was born in Angers. Following his first studies in piano and organ, he became the organist at the church St. Serge in Angers at the age of 12. In 1952, while still studying, Guillou played the premiere of his organ transcription of The Musical Offering by Johann Sebastian Bach at Erskine and American United Church in Montreal, Canada. In 1955, he accepted a position as professor of organ and composition at the Institute of Sacred Music in Lisbon. Due to health reasons, Guillou underwent long term medical treatment in Berlin and relocated to this city in 1958. During the following five years, he composed numerous works and made his first recordings at Lutherkirche and St. Matthias church. In 1963 he returned to Paris, having been appointed Principle Organist at Saint-Eustac