Jean Déré

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Jean Déré (June 23, 1886 – December 6, 1970) was a French composer and music teacher. He was born in Niort, and his father was an organist and choir director, so Déré began performing publicly at age six. He studied at the Conservatoire de Paris from 1897 with teachers including Louis Diémer, Albert Lavignac, Georges Caussade, Charles Lenepveu, Jules Massenet and Charles Marie Widor.

By World War I he had started composing, writing a symphonic poem and an opera. He also taught in Niort and sometimes played the organ at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, where he met Albert Schweitzer. Because the war interrupted competitions, he entered the 1919 Prix de Rome anyway and won the Second Grand Prix with the cantata Le Poète et la Fée, even though he was older than the usual limit.

Déré later taught counterpoint at the Conservatoire de Paris and from 1937 to 1956 was professor of solfège and harmony. In 1933 he helped bring large classical concerts to radio with Désiré-Émile Inghelbrecht, Élisabeth Brasseur and Igor Stravinsky, and he taught Jacques Loussier.

He wrote music for piano, violin, orchestra and opera Le Mirage, as well as film music (notably Kœnigsmark, 1923) and many church, choral and chamber works. He died in Sainte-Suzanne, Mayenne at the age of 84.