Serge Blanc

Serge Blanc (31 December 1929 – 29 June 2013) was a French classical violinist. A child prodigy trained at the Conservatoire de Paris, he performed from the age of 11 in Paris with the Orchestre Colonne and the Pasdeloup Orchestra. He studied further at the Juilliard School of Music and played at the Tanglewood Festival. Back in France, he founded several chamber music ensembles and became principal of the second violins at the Orchestre de l'Opéra national de Paris. For several years, he conducted the Orchestre philharmonique de Radio France, but then returned to the opera orchestra. He taught at the Conservatoire de Paris, and edited Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin.

Early life

Born in Paris on 31 December 1929, Blanc began studying violin at the age of six. He passed the entrance exam to the Conservatoire de Paris at age ten and studied with Jules Boucherit. He was awarded the First prize for violin three years later, later also the Prix d'Honneur for chamber music. Boucherit and Claude Delvincourt, then the conservatories director and a resistance fighter, still organized public recitals for boy. He also collaborated with Nadia Boulanger until she died in 1979. along with Pierre Vozlinsky. He founded the Pro Arte Quartet, then the Da Camera Trio, with whom he toured in France and worldwide, with pianist Odette Gartenlaub, violist Christos Michalakakos and pianist Antonio Ruiz-Pipó, among others. Ruiz-Pipó composed a Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra in 1987, dedicated to Blanc.

Pedagogy Blanc was professor at the École normale de musique de Paris where he created the chamber music class. Then he was violin and chamber music teacher at the Conservatoire de Paris, and gave private lessons where he taught mainly chamber music. Based on the teaching by Enescu, Blanc collected and annotated Bach's Sonatas and Partitas for Solo Violin, which Enescu called "the Himalayas of the violinists". Having studied them for half a century, he published a pedagogical edition with recommendations for phrasing, tempo, fingering, and expression.