Jean-François Paillard, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetJean-François Paillard
French conductor
Date of Birth: 
Place of Birth: Vitry-le-François, Grand Est, France
About Jean-François Paillard
- Jean-François Paillard (12 April 1928 – 15 April 2013) was a French conductor.He was born in Vitry-le-François and received his musical training at the Conservatoire de Paris, where he won first prize in music history, and the Salzburg Mozarteum. He also earned a degree in mathematics at the Sorbonne. In 1953, he founded the Jean-Marie Leclair Instrumental Ensemble, which later became the Jean-François Paillard Chamber Orchestra in 1959.
- The ensemble has made recordings of much of the Baroque repertoire for Erato Records and has toured throughout Europe and the United States.
- It has also recorded with many leading French instrumentalists, including Maurice André, Jean-Pierre Rampal, Pierre Pierlot, Lily Laskine. A 1968 recording by the orchestra of the "Canon and Gigue for 3 violins and basso continuo" by Johann Pachelbel, familiarly known as Pachelbel's Canon, nearly single-handedly brought the piece from obscurity to great renown.
- The recording was done in a more Romantic style, at a significantly slower tempo than it had been played at before, and contained obligato parts, written by Paillard, that are now closely associated with the piece.
- It was released on an Erato Records album, and was also included on a widely-distributed album by mail-order label Musical Heritage Society album in 1968.
- The recording began to get significant attention in the United States, particularly in San Francisco, during the early 1970s.
- By the late 1970s various renditions of it were topping classical music charts in the U.S., including Paillard's own.
- The Paillard Chamber Orchestra's recording was also prominently featured in the soundtrack of the 1980 film Ordinary People.Paillard released 307 records.He also appeared frequently as a guest conductor with other orchestras and was active as an author.
- He edited the series Archives de la Musique Instrumentale and published La musique française classique in 1960. He died in April 2013, aged 85.
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