André Gagnon was born in St-Pacôme-de-Kamouraska, Quebec, Canada on 1 August 1942. Exhibiting prodigious talent, he penned his first keyboard pieces by the age of six. After a period of private and formal study in his homeland at the Conservatoire de Musique du Québec in Montreal, in 1961 he was awarded a government grant to travel to Paris, where he became a pupil of virtuosa Yvonne Loriod. He has been the recipient of many honors, including the prestigious Juno and Félix Awards. In 1978 he became an Officer of the Order of Canada.
Gagnon's long and distinguished international career has embraced a variety of professional musical activities, including solo concertizing, accompanying, arranging, conducting, and composing. An artist of extraordinary versatility, he is a master of numerous classical- and popular-music idioms forming the basis of an engagingly eclectic style in which high-art traditions are sometimes fused with well-known melodies of his native Quebec. Among his most important original works are Rencontre est-ouest (1984) based on poems by Albert Lozeau, and the romantic opera Nelligan (1990), with a libretto by Michel Tremblay. His historicist pastiches, including Mes Quatre Saisons, Cher Amadeus, and Les turluteries, have enjoyed particular success.
For further information / Autres renseignements:
André Gagnon Biography in the Canadian Encyclopedia.
Biographie d'André Gagnon dans l'Encyclopédie canadienne.
Biographie d'André Gagnon sur la page Québec Info Musique.
Site web officiel / Official web site.
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