Guy Bourassa

Bourassa, Guy

Guy Bourassa. Pianist, teacher, b St-Raymond-de-Portneuf, near Quebec City, 30 Jul 1923, died Québec City 5 Oct 2001.

He began his musical training with Alphonse Tardif at the Collège de Lévis, then studied until 1944 with Germaine Malépart at the CMM, and 1944-6 with Robert Casadesus in New York. In the summer of 1947 he took courses at the American Cons at Fontainebleau, and for the next two semesters he studied with Jean Batalla in Paris. He began giving radio and TV recitals in 1946 and appeared as a soloist with the MSO and the Quebec Symphony Orchestra.

He taught piano 1948-88 at the CMQ. A sought-after accompanist, he has played for Pierrette Alarie, Pierre Boutet, Raoul Jobin and Léopold Simoneau, the violinist Christian Ferras, and the cellist Pierre Fournier. In 1954 Bourassa gave the first performance of Serge Garant's Variations pour piano on the CBC radio program 'Premières'. In the same year he presented a series of piano duet recitals with Pierre Beaudet, and, also with Beaudet, recorded John Beckwith's Music for Dancing and Violet Archer's Ten Folk Songs (1954). He also recorded Rodolphe Mathieu's Sonata (1956). At the inauguration of Salle Claude-Champagne in Montreal, 22 Nov 1964, he was the soloist in the Champagne Concerto. He was the brother of the musicologist Juliette Bourassa-Trépanier.