Pierre Sancan

Pierre Charles Sancan (24 October 1916 – 20 October 2008) was a French composer, pianist, teacher and conductor. Along with Olivier Messiaen and Henri Dutilleux, he was a major figure among French musicians in the mid-20th-century transition between modern and contemporary eras, but he is little known outside France. Life Born in Mazamet in Tarn, Occitania, Sancan began his musical studies in Morocco and Toulouse before entering the Conservatoire de Paris, where he studied fugue with Jean Gallon, conducting with Charles Munch and Roger Désormière, piano with Yves Nat, and composition with Henri Büsser. In 1943, Sancan won the Conservatoire’s Prix de Rome for composition with his cantata La Légende de Icare, but he did not assume a regular teaching post there until 1956, when his former teacher Yves Nat retired. Sancan held this job until retiring in 1985. He lived another 23 years, to the age of 91, but his later years were compromised by Alzheimer’s disease. He died in Paris. Achievements As a pianist, Sancan was most prominently seen as the cellist André Navarra’s accompanist. His recordings of Ravel’s two piano concertos with conductor Pierre Dervaux and Mozart’s four-hand conce