Robert Veyron-Lacroix

He was the son of an industrialist and revealed his talent at an early age. He studied with Marcel Samuel-Rousseau and Yves Nat at the Conservatoire de Paris, winning first prizes for piano, harpsichord, harmony, counterpoint, accompaniment, solfeggio, and theory.

He made his French Radio debut in 1949 and pursued a career as a soloist, both in chamber music, and with orchestras. He was a regular performer at numerous festivals in Europe and toured Africa, America, and the Far East. Veyron-Lacroix's technical assurance and sensitive musicianship helped to create a rewarding partnership in the immediate post-war years with Jean-Pierre Rampal. From their first major public recital together—at the Salle Gaveau in Paris in 1949, at a time when whole concerts for flute and piano were unfashionable—they went on to perform together around the world for over thirty years and won many awards for their recordings. In the early 1980s, owing to ill-health, Veyron-Lacroix retired from their partnership, and Rampal forged a new duo with American pianist John Steele Ritter. He created many contemporary works, including the Concerto pour clavecin et orchestra by Jean Françaix, concertos by Jean-Michel Damase and Darius Milhaud, a sonata for flute and piano by André Jolivet, and pieces by Maurice Ohana, Jacques Charpentier and Tony Aubin.