René Voisin

René Louis Gabriel Voisin (19 November 1893 - 16 January 1952) was a French

trumpeter The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitched one octave below the standard B ...

. Born in

Angers Angers (, , ) is a city in western France, about southwest of Paris. It is the prefecture of the Maine-et-Loire department and was the capital of the province of Anjou until the French Revolution. The inhabitants of both the city and the prov ...

, Voisin was a member of the

Boston Symphony Orchestra The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is the second-oldest of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the " Big Five". Founded by Henry Lee Higginson in 1881, ...

trumpet section for 24 years, between 1928 and his death in 1952; he was also father and teacher to

Roger Voisin Roger Louis Voisin (June 26, 1918 – February 13, 2008) was an American classical trumpeter. In 1959, The New York Times called him "one of the best-known trumpeters in this country." Performing career Among the most influential trumpet p ...

, the trumpet player and

pedagogue Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken as ...

who would later become principal trumpet of the Boston Symphony. Voisin was a student of Pierre Vignal (1879–1943) at the

Conservatoire de Paris The Conservatoire de Paris (), also known as the Paris Conservatory, is a college of music and dance founded in 1795. Officially known as the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris (CNSMDP), it is situated in the avenue ...

. Whilst in Paris, Voisin worked as a freelance musician, and played in the first performance of Igor Stravinsky's ''

The Rite of Spring ''The Rite of Spring''. Full name: ''The Rite of Spring: Pictures from Pagan Russia in Two Parts'' (french: Le Sacre du printemps: tableaux de la Russie païenne en deux parties) (french: Le Sacre du printemps, link=no) is a ballet and orchestral ...

''; here he also became friends with conductor

Sergei Koussevitzky Sergei Alexandrovich KoussevitzkyKoussevitzky's original Russian forename is usually transliterated into English as either "Sergei" or "Sergey"; however, he himself adopted the French spelling "Serge", using it in his signature. (SeThe Koussevit ...

and played with the ''

Orchestre de la Société des Concerts du Conservatoire The Orchestre de la Société des concerts du Conservatoire was a symphony orchestra established in Paris in 1828. It gave its first concert on 9 March 1828 with music by Beethoven, Rossini, Meifreid, Rode and Cherubini. Administered by the philha ...

'' between 1920 and 1928. Koussévitzky later succeeded

Pierre Monteux Pierre Benjamin Monteux (; 4 April 18751 July 1964) was a French (later American) conductor. After violin and viola studies, and a decade as an orchestral player and occasional conductor, he began to receive regular conducting engagements in ...

as music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and brought Voisin to the Boston Symphony as fourth trumpet in 1928. 1893 births 1952 deaths French classical trumpeters Male trumpeters People from Angers 20th-century classical musicians 20th-century French musicians 20th-century trumpeters 20th-century French male musicians French emigrants to the United States {{trumpeter-stub