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Saint-Hyacinthe is a city in Quebec, situated on the Yamaska River, approximately 50 kilometres east of Montreal. The settlement was founded in the middle of the eighteenth century to become a municipality in the middle of the nineteenth, and a town in 1857. The name of Saint-Hyacinthe derives after the local seigneur, Jacques-Hyacinthe-Simon Delorme. Today the town is an industrial centre, accounting for a population of 40,000. Saint-Hyacinthe has a rich history of culture. The Séminaire de Saint-Hyacinthe was established in the beginning in the nineteenth century and soon started giving music courses; someone named Cléophas Larue was said to have taught the young Calixa Lavallée in that institution.
Augustin Lavallée, Calixa 's father, came to the town in the middle of the 19th century to work as a producer of organ pipes and string-instrument maker in the modest factory of Joseph Casavant, aside from conducting an amateur band. At the age of 10 Calixa became the regular organist of Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire Church. Besides, music was taught at the Sisters of the Sacred Heart’s convent, which was established in 1842, and also at the Sisters of St Joseph and the Sisters of the Presentation of Mary’s convents. It’s no surprise that the town of Saint-Hyacinthe was known throughout the globe for the organ manufacturer, Casavant Frères, which was founded in the late 1870s by Samuel and Claver Casavant, Joseph's sons, who were both born there.
Another important person of the town was Léon Ringuet, who came there in 1880 to conduct a concert band Société Philharmonique, established a year before. Aside from the band, Ringuet also worked as a teacher and the organist-choirmaster at the cathedral. L.-J. Oscar Fontaine moved to the United States in the early twenties century, after being one of Ringuet’s pupils and an assistant organist at the cathedral. Robert Pelletier directed the concert band two decades ago. Two more people left their prints in the town’s history. Conrad Letendre and Charles-Émile Gadbois, 2 prominent residents, were both born in the beginning of the twentieth century.
Aside from working as organist at Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire, Conrad Letendre taught at the academy and the seminary. He had such pupils as Bernard Lagacé, originated from Saint-Hyacinthe, and Gaston Arel, becoming the organist at the cathedral in the middle of the century. As for Letendre and Gadbois, they collaborated in their publishing enterprise La Bonne Chanson that they founded in the town in 1937. The town of Saint-Hyacinthe is proud of being a place where the JMC originated in the very middle of the twentieth century. Saint-Hyacinthe had several concert bands like the Patro, established in 1906, and choirs like the Variétéscanadiennes, and the Ménestreles and Gloria Laus.
Hall of the seminary, as well as the Corona cinema, has long been hosting the live performances. Many famous people were born in Saint-Hyacinthe. The town was a birthplace of Damis Paul, the pianist-arranger-composer GéraldLocas, Willie Lamothe, the organists Paul Vigeant and Denis Regnaud, Louis-Philippe Laurendeau, and the teacher and pianist Miville Bois. Saint-Hyacinthe has also spawned many pop groups, such as the Aristos, the Sultans, and the Hou-Lops. In 1946 the company Providence Organ Inc was established in the suburb of Providence to become Guilbault-Thérien Inc in thirty years. The town’s Société D'histoire Régionale holds the collections of the Société Philharmonique and Simone Turner, closely linked to the JMC movement.
