He was a trumpeter, cornet player and teacher born in Ales in the Cevennes region of France. He grew up in a mining family where his father was an amateur musician and when he was still young he was taught to play the trumpet by a friend of his father’s. Although he was working in a mine at this time, his teacher urged that he joined the Paris Conservatory and in order to gain free entry he became part of a military band and entered when he was 18.
He did not always have an easy time at the conservatory and even though he won a prize for the cornet after only six months there, his professor beat him and said he should go back when he could “excel in his playing”. This he did a few weeks later when he perfected his performance of Jean-Baptiste Arban’s etudes and later went on to win trumpet competitions such as the Geneva International Competition and the Internationalen Wettbewerb held at Munich.
After starting his career as a professional trumpeter, often on the piccolo trumpet, he could be heard on many recordings of Baroque music and after wanting to move outside the realms of trumpet composition, he became acclaimed for his transcription of Baroque works written for stringed instruments as well as flute, oboe and voice.
Influencing artists such as Wynton Marsalis his work can be heard on over 300 recordings including his own Le Plus Beaux Noels, The Trumpet Shall Sound, Concertos pour Trompette, Musique a Notre-Dame, Concert Baroque and The Ultimate Trumpet Collection and with other artists on Claude Bolling’s Greatest Hits, Big Band and Toot Suite. He later could often be heard performing in a trio with his children who are Beatrice on the oboe and Nicolas on the trumpet.
As a teacher he was Professor of Trumpet at the Paris Conservatory from 1967, the City of Paris created the International Trumpet Competition, aka Maurice Andre Competition, in his honour, and he designed a four-valve piccolo trumpet which is now player by top trumpeters.
After retiring to the south of France he died several years later in hospital in Bayonne. He was 78 years old.
Maurice Andre Recordings
Als Ich Meinen Shafen Wacht (Traditional German)
Erato 2292-45159-2 (CD: Maurice Andre: Les Plus Beaux Noels)
Les Petits Chanteurs de Saint-Laurent
Conductor – Francois Rauber
Here he is performing the first movement of Haydn’s “Trumpet Concerto”…
Sources:
- http://www.maurice-andre.com/
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Andre
- http://abel.hive.no/oj/musikk/trompet/andre/
- http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=81393375
- http://shopping.yahoo.com/p:Maurice%20Andre:1927525793