Michel Perrault

Michel Brunet Perrault (born 20 July 1925, Montreal) is a Canadian composer, conductor, music educator, and percussionist. As a composer, his work largely pulls on Canadian folk melodies and his compositions avoid modernism in favor of classical ideas of harmony and counterpoint. He described his own work in these words, "I'm a classicist living in the wrong period. Dodecaphonism, serialism, or any other ism, are not for me. I like a folk tune and the harmony that goes with it." Perrault has been commissioned to write works for such notable organizations as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and the Victoria Symphony Orchestra. From the late 1970s through the 1990s he wrote a considerable amount of music for the Gerald Danovitch Saxophone Quartet. Much of his music has been published by his own publishing company, Les Publications Bonart.

Perrault studied at McGill University under Louis Decair from 1941-1943. He then entered the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal where he was a pupil of Réal Gagnier from 1943-1944. He also studied privately with Gabriel Cusson between 1943-1946. He then studied in France at the École Normale de Musique de Paris with Nadia Boulanger, Georges Dandelot, and Arthur Honegger from 1946-1947. After returning to Canada he studied privately with Conrad Letendre.