Reine Décarie

Reine Décarie (Sister Jean-d'Alexandrie). Voice teacher, composer, born Montreal 4 Jan 1912, died Longueuil, Que., 21 Sep 2008; B MUS (Montreal) 1941, M MUS (Montreal) 1944, L MUS composition (Montreal) 1948. She joined the order of the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary in 1932 and studied at the École supérieure de musique d'Outremont (École Vincent-d'Indy) with Claude Champagne (composition), Alfred La Liberté (voice and piano), and Rodolphe Plamondon and Roger Filiatrault (voice). She also studied violin and the harmonization of Gregorian chant and completed her studies in medieval music history and renaissance music theory at Boston U in 1968. She began to teach singing at the École Vincent-d'Indy in 1942, and her pupils have included Réjane Cardinal, Louise Lebrun, Gloria Richard, and Cécile Vallée.

In addition to many psalm settings and songs for voice and piano, Décarie has set several poems to music, eg, Le Jeu de ma subconscience (1948) for voice, flute, and harp and Palinods (1950) for chorus, solo, and organ on texts by Gustave Lamarche. Her Chanson de mon pays is published by Les Éditions de La Bonne Chanson (1952). Her song cycle Four Seasonal Poems (1956) is dedicated to Maureen Forrester. Décarie has composed five complete Masses, a Cantate à Ste-Cécile (1944), Chants liturgiques for a wedding mass (1965), a Fugue for organ (1947), a Sonatina for piano (1948), and an opera Cendrelune (1950). Her works were occasionally signed Johane d'Arcie and some were published by Les LÉditions de l'École Vincent-d'IndyK.