Edmond Dédé

Edmond Dédé
Edmond Dédé
Background information
Born	November 20, 1827 New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Died	January 5, 1901(1901-01-05) (aged 73)[1] Paris, France
Genres	Classical
Occupations	Composer conductor
Instrument	Violin

Edmond Dédé (November 20, 1827 – January 5, 1901)^[2][3] was an American musician and composer from New Orleans, Louisiana. A free-born Creole, he moved to Europe to study in Paris in 1855 and settled in France. His compositions include Quasimodo Symphony, Le Palmier Ouverture, Le Serment de L'Arabe and Patriotisme. For more than forty years, he worked in Bordeaux as assistant conductor at the Grand Théâtre and subsequently as conductor of the orchestras at the Théâtre l'Alcazar and the Folies Bordelaises.^[4]

Dédé was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, the fourth generation of a free family of that city. His father was a marketman, poultry dealer, and music teacher.^{[5]: 38–39} As a boy, Dédé first learned the clarinet, but soon switched to the violin, on which he was considered a prodigy. He later performed compositions of his own as well as those by Rodolphe Kreutzer, a favored composer of his. Dédé's teachers in his youth included violinists Constantin Debergue and Italian-born Ludovico Gabici, who was the director of the St. Charles Theater Orchestra. He was taught music theory by Eugène Prévost and New York-born black musician Charles-Richard Lambert, the father of Sidney and Charles Lucien Lambert.

Dédé's instruction from Gabici ended when he left to seek work in Mexico at the end of the Mexican–American War in 1848. When he eventually returned to the US at the end of 1852, he worked as a cigar maker, saving money to be able to travel to Europe. He went first to Paris and then Belgium, where he helped his friend Joseph Tinchant set up a branch of the Tinchant family's cigar business. He returned to Paris around 1857 and took lessons at the Paris Conservatoire. He studied at the Conservatoire with Jean-Delphin Alard and Fromental Halévy.^[5]: 104

In the early 1860s, Edmond Dédé went to Bordeaux to take up a position as assistant conductor for the ballet at the Grand Théâtre. Within a few years, he found employment at the Théâtre l'Alcazar, a popular concert café in the city. Later in the 1870s, he moved to the Folies Bordelaises. Throughout, Dédé continued to compose art music, which he sought to have performed at the more prestigious Grand Théâtre.^[5]: 128

Samuel Snäer Jr. (1835–1900),^[6] an African-American conductor and musician, conducted the first performance in New Orleans of Dédé's Quasimodo Symphony. It was premiered on the night of May 10, 1865, in the New Orleans Theater to a large audience of prominent free people of color of New Orleans and Northern whites. Dédé was not present at this performance.

After settling in Bordeaux in 1864, he returned to New Orleans only once, in 1893. During the voyage to the United States, his freighter sank, occasioning a rescue. When he reached New Orleans, three benefit concerts were held in his honor, in which he participated. New Orleans' musical innovators and musical elite, including Jelly Roll Morton's teacher, William J. Nickerson, took part in the concerts. The welcome committee that organized the concerts for Dédé overlapped with the membership of the Citizens Committee, the group of social and legal activists who brought the legal challenges that led to the Plessy v. Ferguson ruling in 1896 which maintained racial segregation as "separate but equal".^{[5]: 192–193}

Dédé died on January 5, 1901, in the 14th arrondissement of Paris.^{[2][5]: 208} Many of his compositions have been preserved at the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris.

On November 20, 2021, Google featured Dédé on its U.S. home page as a Google Doodle to honor his 194th birthday.^[7]

In 1864 Dédé married a Frenchwoman, Sylvie Leflet, and settled in Bordeaux. They had one son, Eugène Dédé [fr], who became a music hall conductor and composer of popular songs.^{[5][page needed]}

Dédé was Catholic.^[8]

• Mon pauvre coeur (1852)
• Quasimodo Symphony (1865)
• Le Palmier ouverture (1865)
• Le Serment de l'Arabe (1865) (written during a stint in Algeria)
• Méphisto masqué (186?) (ophicleide and orchestra, with Mirlitone Instruments, or piano solo)
• Morgiane, ou, Le sultan d'Ispahan (1887) (opera in four acts)

• Sullivan, Lester (1988). "Composers of Color of Nineteenth-Century New Orleans: The History behind the Music" (PDF). Black Music Research Journal. 8 (1). Chicago, Illinois: Center for Black Music Research - Columbia College Chicago and University of Illinois Press: 51–82. Retrieved September 30, 2024.

• Kwame Anthony Appiah; Henry Louis Gates Jr. (eds.). "Edmond Dede". Encarta Africana Encyclopedia (CD-ROM and in book form published by Basic Civitas Books). Microsoft.
• Hanson, Christopher T. F. (2013). "Dédé, Edmond". Grove Music Online (8th ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.A2087959. ISBN 978-1-56159-263-0.
• Sullivan, Lester (January 2000). "Edmond Dede". Mon pauvre coeur / Françoise et Tirtillard / Méfisto masqué / Battez aux champs / Chicago (Liner notes by University archivist, Xavier University, and Richard Rosenberg, conductor, Hot Springs Music Festival). Naxos Records. 8.559038.
• Zick, William (February 15, 2010). "Edmond Dede (1827-1903)". AfriClassical.com.
• "Dede, Edmond". Dictionary of Louisiana – Biography – D. Louisiana Historical Association. Retrieved March 22, 2024.

• Free scores by Edmond Dédé at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• Brief biography of Dédé
• "Manuscript score for Morgiane, ou, Le sultan d'Ispahan (1887)", Houghton Library, Harvard University