André Casanova
1919 - 2009
Biography
French composer André Casanova was born on October 12th 1919 in Paris. He studied law whilst also studying at the Ecole Normale de Musique where, in 1942, he was a pupil of Dandelot. He was one of the first composers to have lessons with René Leibowitz in 1944 and the lessons he learned from Leibowitz pervaded through his compositional style. The 1959 ISCM Festival saw his first major international performance – Loriod premiered his Piano Concertino in its revised form and the work was largely well received. Casanova also wrote for Preuves in 1955-6 and sat on the ORTF music committee in 1963-4. He passed away in Louveciennes on March 7th 2009, leaving a library of 106 opus numbers including a dozen concertos, many works for chamber ensembles, five symphonies and five operas.