Jean-Baptiste Labelle

Jean-Baptiste Labelle (September 1825 – 9 September 1898) was a Canadian composer, organist, pianist, and conductor. He is best known for composing the music to the song Ô Canada! mon pays, mes amours (words 1834, music before 1868) with words by George-Étienne Cartier. He also used words by Cartier for the song Avant tout je suis Canadien. Some of his other notable works include the cantatas Cantate: La Confédération (1868) and La Croisade canadienne (1886); the operetta La Conversion d'un pêcheur de la Nouvelle-Écosse (published by the A.J. Boucher Co. in 1868); the piano pieces Marche canadienne (1846) and Quadrille national canadien; and the song Chant des Zouaves canadiens (1881).

Life and career Born to Canadian parents in Burlington, Vermont, Labelle was baptized in Montreal on 13 November 1825. He received his earliest musical training in that city from string instrumentalist and instrument maker Joseph Lyonnais. He later studied under Austrian pianist Leopold von Meyer from 1845 to 1847. From 1843 to 1846 he worked as a church organist in Boucherville. He then worked in the same capacity at a church in Chambly, Quebec from 1846 to 1849. He had previously suffered from an illness in December 1896 which had left him paralysed for the last couple years of his life.