Yves Ramette
Yves Ramette (6 February 1921 – 2 June 2012) was a French post-romantic composer and organist. Biography. Yves Ramette was born in 1921 in Bavay, France, where his father was the Director of a Professional Graduate School. From a very young age, Ramette was attracted to music. When he was seven years old, he started learning musical notation as well as playing the violin and the piano. At age fourteen, while pursuing his secondary studies at the Lycée de Beauvais, he also learnt Harmony lessons. In Beauvais, he also studied the violin with Robert Duforestel. He then joined  the Conservatoire national supérieur de musique de Paris to study harmony with , counterpoint and fugue with Simone Plé-Caussade, piano with Lélia Gousseau and Lazare Lévy. He also studied conducting and orchestration with Eugène Bigot. In parallel, he studied the Organ with Georges Jacob, composition with Arthur Honegger at the École Normale de Musique de Paris where he awarded First Prize in 1945. From 1947 to 1953 he taught the organ and counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum de Paris. In 1952, he was appointed as the “Maître de chapelle” and organ player at the in Paris. In 1953, together with  Božidar Kantušer, Luc Ferrari and Pierre Migaux he founded Group 84. He created and directed the mixed choir “Voix Ardens” to promote the traditional, classical, romantic and modern choral music. This choir gave many concerts from 1968 to 1987. During his later years, Ramette mainly composed works for the organ and the piano, his favorite instruments. In 1997 he published a memoir “Grandeur et Décadence d’une tribune” (Éditions Odilon Media/Éditions du Sel). Ramette output includes six symphonies, several chamber musics, choral and vocal works and many organ and piano pieces. Almost all his works have been recorded on CD  (Navona Records, USA). The American concert pianist Eric Himy has performed and recorded many of Ramette's piano works. Yves Ramette died in Prades in June 2012, aged ninety-one.