Édouard Joseph Woolley (31 March 1916 – 22 December 1991) was a

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

tenor A tenor is a type of classical music, classical male singing human voice, voice whose vocal range lies between the countertenor and baritone voice types. It is the highest male chest voice type. The tenor's vocal range extends up to C5. The lo ...

actor An actor or actress is a person who portrays a character in a performance. The actor performs "in the flesh" in the traditional medium of the theatre or in modern media such as film, radio, and television. The analogous Greek term is (), li ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Defi ...

, and

music educator Music education is a field of practice in which educators are trained for careers as elementary or secondary music teachers, school or music conservatory ensemble directors. Music education is also a research area in which scholars do original ...

Haiti Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...

an birth. He became a naturalized Canadian citizen in 1958. His compositional output includes masses for three voices and for four voices, a few songs, and some instrumental pieces. The section "Mazoumbel" from his suite for violin and piano ''Sous les palmiers'' (c. 1958) was performed in a concert of Haitian music in Montreal in 1979.

Life and career

Born in

Port-au-Prince Port-au-Prince ( , ; ht, Pòtoprens ) is the capital and most populous city of Haiti. The city's population was estimated at 987,311 in 2015 with the metropolitan area estimated at a population of 2,618,894. The metropolitan area is define ...

, Woolley began his studies in his native city with Carmen Brouard (piano and harmony), Élisabeth de Pesquidoux-Mahy (singing),

Werner Jaegerhuber Werner Anton Jaegerhuber (17 March 1900 – 20 May 1953) was a Haitian composer known for composing "Messe sur les Airs Vodoussques", "Musique pour Aieules", "Naissa" and many others. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jaegerhuber was the son of An ...

(German opera/lieder), Raoul Nargys (acting), and Henriette Perret-Duplessis (singing). After working for a few years as a choirmaster at a church in Port-au-Prince, he moved to Montreal in 1938 at the age of 22 where he studied singing with Salvator Issaurel from the time of his arrival through 1944. He then entered the Conservatoire national de musique where he earned a Doctor of Music in 1947 after writing his thesis "La phonétique appliquée à l'art du chant". At the conservatoire he was an organ student of

Eugène Lapierre Eugène Lapierre (8 June 1899 – 21 October 1970) was a Canadian organist, composer, journalist, writer on music, arts administrator, and music educator. He was awarded the King George V Silver Jubilee Medal in 1935 and the King George VI Corona ...

and a piano pupil of Edmond Trudel. In 1942 Woolley made his professional opera debut as Antonin in

Reynaldo Hahn Reynaldo Hahn (; 9 August 1874 – 28 January 1947) was a Venezuelan-born French composer, conductor, music critic, and singer. He is best known for his songs – ''mélodies'' – of which he wrote more than 100. Hahn was born in Caracas b ...

's ''

Ciboulette ''Ciboulette'' is a French opérette in three acts, music by Reynaldo Hahn, libretto by Robert de Flers and Francis de Croisset, first performed at the Théâtre des Variétés, in Paris, on 7 April 1923. One of the most elegant and refined compo ...

'' at Les Variétés lyriques (LVL) in Montreal. That same year he began operating his own private voice studio which he ran for several decades. Among his notable students were

Joseph Rouleau Joseph A. Rouleau, (February 28, 1929 – July 12, 2019) was a French Canadian Bass (voice type), bass opera singer, particularly associated with the Italian and French repertoires. Life and career Born in Matane, Quebec, he studied privately w ...

and

André Turp André Turp (December 21, 1925, Montreal – February 25, 1991, Montreal) was a Canadian tenor, particularly associated with the French and Italian repertories. Life and career André Turp took private voice lessons with Édouard Woolley and Fr ...

. He was a principal artist at the LVL through 1947, spending five seasons performing leading roles in works like François Bazin's '' Le voyage en Chine'' and Oscar Straus's '' Drei Walzer''. During the 1940s through the 1960s he performed as a singer and actor on a variety of

CBC Radio CBC Radio is the English-language radio operations of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The CBC operates a number of radio networks serving different audiences and programming niches, all of which (regardless of language) are outlined below ...

and

CBC Television CBC Television (also known as CBC TV) is a Canadian English-language broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster. The network began operations on September 6, 1952. Its French-l ...

programs and appeared in supporting roles on the dramatic stage and in Canadian films. In 1948 Woolley founded the

Opéra national du Québec This is a glossary list of opera genres, giving alternative names. "Opera" is an Italian word (short for "opera in musica"); it was not at first ''commonly'' used in Italy (or in other countries) to refer to the genre of particular works. Most c ...

, serving as the company's first artistic director through 1952. From 1967 until his retirement in 1981 he taught

art history Art history is the study of aesthetic objects and visual expression in historical and stylistic context. Traditionally, the discipline of art history emphasized painting, drawing, sculpture, architecture, ceramics and decorative arts; yet today ...

at the

Cégep du Vieux Montréal Cégep du Vieux Montréal is a CEGEP (Collège d'enseignement général et professionnel, or College of General and Vocational Education) located at 255 Ontario Street East, in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The College of General and Vocational Edu ...

. He served as the director of the Conservatoire national de musique from 1971 to 1975. He died in Miami in 1991 at the age of 75.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Woolley, Edouard 1916 births 1991 deaths Canadian male composers Male conductors (music) Canadian operatic tenors Canadian male radio actors Canadian male television actors Canadian people of Haitian descent Conservatoire national de musique alumni Academic staff of the Conservatoire national de musique Canadian music educators Haitian emigrants to Canada Voice teachers 20th-century Canadian male actors 20th-century Canadian conductors (music) 20th-century Canadian male opera singers 20th-century American male opera singers 20th-century Canadian composers Academic staff of Cégep du Vieux Montréal