Jacques Castérède was born in Paris in 1926 and studied music at the Paris Conservatoire. After a cursus that lasted nine years, during which he won the highest distinctions in all subjects, he obtained the Prix de Rome in 1953 and spent three years at the Villa Médicis.
He has always remained faithful to Honegger's style of music, his professional conscience having always rejected all the adventures of contemporary music, for which he is content to show curiosity.
Jacques Castérède masters all musical genres: with the full orchestra in his symphonies, concertos or vocal pieces, scenic music (ballets) and oratorios, whith chamber music and of course whith the piano whith which he gives concerts. Being naturally attracted to melody, Jacques Castérède has remained true to modal scales - diatonic and chromatic - in which he expresses himself spontaneously.
Teaching is a daily activity for this accomplished and highly awarded musician. In 1959, having left the Paris Conservatoire as a pupil seven years before, he came back to teach. After being responsable for the solfège classes - which gave birth to precious pedagogical manuels - he then taught musical analysis and composition between 1972 and 1992.
Franck LANGLOIS