Gerber René

* 1908 + 2006

Born 1908 in Travers (Neuchâtel). Schooling and studies : secondary school and gymnasium in Neuch¹tel; 1929 Zürich University; 1931-1933 Zürich Conservatory (professors: Volkmar Andreae, Paul Müller); 1934 educational stay in Paris, where he worked with Paul Dukas (at the Ecole Normale), Nadia Boulanger, Robert Siohan and Pierre Dupont. Professional activity: composition and music teaching from 1940 to 1947 as music professor at the Latin College in Neuchâtel, from 1947 to 1951 director of the Neuchâtel Conservatory; besides this, he organized painting exibitions and wrote. René Gerber lives in Bevaix (Neuchâtel). Gerber, whose musical idiom is tonal and modal with hints of polytonality, uses traditional forms (suite, sonata, concerto, fugue, etc,) for his "spontaneous" works and "free" forms for those works hailing from a specific source. He has completed more than 230 works.