| Birth Place: | Bordeaux, France |
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Frédéric Blanc (born 1967) is a French composer, organist and improvisor. The last student of Marie-Madeleine Duruflé, he is based as titular organist of Notre-Dame d'Auteuil in Paris. He has played concerts and given masterclasses internationally, especially in the United States. He is focused on the French organ tradition and improvisation.
Born in Bordeaux in 1967, Blanc first studied law for a year, then organ at the conservatories of Toulouse and Bordeaux with André Fleury, Marie-Claire Alain, Pierre Cogen and, from 1991, with Marie-Madeleine Duruflé.[1] He lived in the Duruflés' apartmentment after they died, as custodian of their estate, including manuscripts, documents, correspondence, photographs and their library.
From 1987 to 1995, he was assistant organist at the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse,[2] and from 1993 to 1999 lecturer in organ at the Conservatoire de Bordeaux. He won second prize at the in 1996, In 1997, he won the Grand Prix d'improvisation of the international organ competition . Since 1999, Blanc has been titular organist at Notre-Dame d'Auteuil in Paris which features a Cavaillé-Coll organ.[3] In August 2003, he was a lecturer at the International Altenberg Organ Academy for Improvisation. He is also a member of the organ commission of Paris and a member of the commission for non-historic organs in the music department of the French Ministry of Culture.[4]
Blanc has held organ masterclasses, for example at the Royal Academy of Music in London and increasingly at U.S. universities, such as Valparaiso University, Indiana, Stanford University, California, Hope College in Holland, Michigan, Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, Southern Methodist University in Dallas, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, University of Michigan and Arizona State University.