René Maillard

René Maillard (8 April 1931 – 4 December 2012) was a French composer. Life Born in Bois-Colombes, Maillard had his first violin lessons during the Second World War with Charles Maillier, who was a violin teacher in Limoges. He was then a student of Arthur Hoérée and at the Conservatory of Versailles with Aimé Steck before he entered the Conservatoire de Paris where he won first prizes for harmony, counterpoint and fugue in the classes of Marcel Samuel-Rousseau and Noël Gallon. A student of Tony Aubin for musical composition, he was awarded a Second Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata Le rire de Gargantua by Randal Lemoine (after Rabelais) in 1955 during his first competition. The piece, performed by the Orchestra of the Opéra Comique with singers René Bianco, Louis Rialland and Jacqueline Cauchard conducted by Jean Fournet, earned him the Second Grand Prix. He was then hired by EMI in 1957 as assistant to the “classical” artistic director René Challan, a position he held until 1960. In particular, he was responsible for recordings by artists such as Samson François, Heitor Villa-Lobos, Paul Tortelier, Aldo Ciccolini. Despite a favourable reception for his first compositions, the dis