Jean Langlais

Jean François-Hyacinthe Langlais III (15 February 1907 – 8 May 1991) was a French composer of modern classical music, organist, and improviser. He described himself as "" (“Breton, of Catholic faith”). Biography Langlais was born in La Fontenelle (Ille-et-Vilaine, Brittany), a small village near Mont Saint-Michel, France to Jean-Marie-Joseph Langlais II, a blacksmith and Flavie Canto, a seamstress. Langlais became blind due to glaucoma when he was only two years old and was sent to the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles (National Institute for Blind Children) in Paris, where he began to study the organ, with André Marchal. From there he progressed to the Paris Conservatoire, obtaining prizes in organ and studying composition with Marcel Dupré and Paul Dukas. He also studied improvisation with Charles Tournemire. among them was the American Kathleen Thomerson, who later published a bio-bibliography about him. Another was Margreeth Chr. de Jong, a Dutch organist, composer and music educator. His first wife Jeannette asked his former student, personal recital liaison and friend Ann Labounsky in 1972 to write Langlais’ biography Jean Langlais the Man and His Music, though it was not