Gérard Geay

Gérard Geay, born in Paris in 1945, studied at the National Conservatory for Higher Education of Music and Danse of that same city. His studies comprised, among others, musical analysis (with Jean-Pierre Guézec and Olivier Messiaen) and composition (with André Jolivet and Henri Dutilleux). Assistant lecturer at divers universities, he also taught in different conservatories of music. From 1974 to 1987 he was a producer at Radio-France. It was thanks to the support of Gilbert Amy that in 1987 he founded the Department of Early Music at the National Conservatory for Higher Education of Music and Dance at Lyon, which he directed until 1992. He there taught the writing techniques and theory of early music (13th-18th centuries). In parallel to this activity he held the position of Dean at the Geneva Early Music Centre from 1998 to 2000. From 2000 to 2009 he occupied a research post in the Mixed Research Unit 2162 of the C.N.R.S. (C.M.B.V.). His mission was notably centred on the restoration of the reduced scores of French music from the 17th and 18th centuries. From 2005 he shared with co-worker Loïc Mallié the Modern Writing class in Lyon (17th-20th centuries). He is also a consultant in the framework of docArtes, the doctoral programme of the University of Leyden (Netherlands). Within the infrastructure of the Labex GREAM at the University of Strasbourg, he has published, with Pierre Michel, Paul Méfano. The Quest of a Musician-Poet (Hermann 2017, in french: Paul Méfano. Les Chemins d’un musicien-poète). In 2018, he published at Delatour Editions, France, The Practice of Musica Ficta in the 16th century in Tablatures for the Lute (in french). At the present time he is a member of the Centre for Research and Experimentation on the Artistic Act (CREAA), Thematic and Interdisciplinary Institute (ITI) at the University of Strasbourg. His research concerns the practice of basso continuo, ornamentation and division playing in the Italian and German repertoires at the very beginning of the XVIIth century. The project is a joint realisation between the CRR of Paris and Strasbourg.