Conservatoire de musique du Québec

The Conservatoire de musique et d'art dramatique du Québec (CMADQ) is a public network of nine state-subsidised schools offering higher education in music and theatre in Quebec, Canada. The organization was established in 1942 as a branch of the Ministère des Affaires culturelles du Québec by the government of Quebec during the premiership of Maurice Duplessis. Orchestra conductor Wilfrid Pelletier and composer Claude Champagne are credited for their zeal in promoting this project towards establishment, and the two men led the organization as director and assistant director for its first several years. The organization's current director general is Nicolas Desjardins.

The first two conservatoires in the CMADQ network were for music and were established in Montreal in 1943 and Quebec City in 1944. During the 1950s the organization founded additional schools for the theatre arts in both those cities, followed by four additional music conservatories in 1967 in Chicoutimi, Hull, Trois-Rivières, and Val-d'Or. The seventh and last school for music to be added was in Rimouski in 1973. A large number of Canada's most successful musicians and artists of the theatre of the 20th and 21st centuries have been trained or taught at these schools.

During the late 1930s and early 1940s, Canadian composer Claude Champagne put together a large report on music education. This report was presented to the Quebec government by Champagne and conductor Wilfrid Pelletier with the hopes of establishing Canadian institutes of higher learning for music. The report closely examined music education in Europe as well as in Canada and plans were soon formed to establish a network of state-subsidized school which would be modeled after European conservatories, particularly the Conservatoire de Paris. On 29 May 1942 The Conservatory Act ('Loi du conservatoire') was passed by the Legislative Assembly of Quebec which allocated a $30,000 budget to form the CMADQ's first school, the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal (CMQM). The CMQM opened its doors in January 1943 with its first round of courses which were held at the Saint-Sulpice Library. Pelletier was the school's first director and Champagne the first assistant director.