Biography
Edmond Dédé (November 20, 1827, New Orleans – 1903, Paris) was a free-born creole musician and composer. His compositions include "Quasimodo Symphony", "Le Palmier Overture", "Le Sermente de L'Arabe" and "Patriotisme".
Dédé's parents had arrived from the French West Indies around 1809. His Father was a militia unit bandmaster. As a boy, he first learned the clarinet, but soon switched to the violin, on which he was considered a prodigy. He would later go on to perform compositions of his own as well as those by Rodolphe Kreutzer, a favored composer of his. Dédé's teahers, in his youth, included violinists Constantin Debergue and Italian-born Ludovico Gabici who was the director of the St. Charles Theater Orchestra. He was taught music theory by Eugène Prévost and New York-born black musician Charles Richard Lambert, the father of Sidney and Charles Lucien Lambert.
His instruction from Gabici ended when white hostility towards musicians of colour forced him to flee to Mexico. However, he continued his studies while in Mexico. When he eventually returned to the States around 1852, he worked as a cigar maker, saving money to be able to travel to Europe. This he successfully did — arriving first in Belgium, then Paris, where he managed to obtain an ultimately successful audition at the Paris Conservatoire in 1857. He studied at the Conservatoire with Jean Delphin Alard and Jacques-François Halevy. In 1864 he married a Frenchwoman, Sylvie Leflet, and settled in Bordeaux. They had one son, Eugene Arcade Dédé, who would go on to become a classical music composer as well. Edmond Dédé served for 27 years as the conductor of the orchestra at the Theatre l'Alcazar in Paris. He, as well, conducted light music performances at the Folies Bordelaises.
Samuel Snaer, Jr. (1835-1900), an African American conductor, musician, and composer, conducted the very first performance to occur in New Orleans of Dédé's "Quasimodo Symphony". It was premiered on the night of May 10, 1865 in the New Orleans Theater to a vast audience of prominent Blacks of New Orleans and Northern Whites. However, Dédé was not present at this performance. After settling in Bordeaux in 1864, Dédé returned to New Orleans only once, in 1893, to give a performance. During his journey to the United States, Dédé lost the precious Cremona violin on which he was supposed to perform. Forced to use a different violin, Dédé's performance was regarded just as spectacular. Edmond Dédé passed away in 1903 in Paris. Many of his compositions have been preserved at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France in Paris.
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