Jean-Michel Damase


Jean-Michel Damase was a French pianist, conductor and composer of classical music.

Career

Damase was born in Bordeaux, the son of harpist Micheline Kahn. He was studying piano and solfège with Marcel Samuel-Rousseau at the age of five and composing by age nine. His first work was a setting of some poems by Colette, whom he had met at a Parisian salon. In 1940, Damase began studying piano with Alfred Cortot at the École Normale de Musique. The next year, he was admitted to the Conservatoire de Paris, entering Armand Ferté’s piano classes and winning first prize for piano in 1943, afterwards studying with Henri Büsser, Marcel Dupré and Claude Delvincourt for composition and winning first prize for composition in 1947 for his Quintet for flute, harp, violin, viola, and cello. In the same year, he won the Grand Prix de Rome for his cantata Et la belle se réveilla. Meanwhile, he appeared as a piano soloist in the Colonne and Conservatoire concerts, and with the Orchestre National of the ORTF.
He made the first complete recording of Gabriel Fauré's nocturnes and barcarolles, for which he received the Grand Prix du Disque.

Selected compositions

;Orchestral
  • Symphony
  • Serenade for strings
;Orchestrations
;Concertante
  • Concerto for harpsichord or harp and small orchestra
  • Concerto for viola, harp and string orchestra
;Chamber music
  • Trio for flute, cello and harp
  • Trio for flute, viola and harp
  • Quintet for flute, harp and string trio, op. 2
  • Aria for cello and piano, op. 7
  • 17 variations for wind quintet, op. 22
  • Sonate en concert for flute, piano and cello, op. 17
  • Trio for flute, oboe and piano
  • String Trio
  • Sonata for clarinet and harp
  • Vacances for alto saxophone and piano
  • Intermède for viola and piano
  • Épigraphe for viola and piano
  • Ostinato for viola and piano
  • Prélude, élégie et final for bass trombone and piano
  • Trio for oboe, horn, and piano
  • Trio for two flutes and piano
  • Sonata for cello and harp
  • Hallucinations for viola and harp
  • Berceuse for horn and piano
  • Pavane variée for horn and piano
;Operas
  • La tendre Eléonore
  • Colombe
  • Eugène le mystérieux
  • Le matin de Faust
  • Madame de...
  • Eurydice
  • L'héritière
;Film scores