POOT, Marcel

Marcel POOT (Vilvorde 07-05-1901 / Ixelles 12-06-1988). Marcel Poot studied music at the Conservatories of Antwerp and Brussels. He was a disciple of Paul Gilson for composition and orchestration and, after winning the Rubens Prize in 1930, he worked in Paris with Paul Dukas.

In 1925, along with a few friends, he founded the group of the Synthétistes to enlarge the audience of contemporary music.

With Paul Gilson, his master, he founded the Revue Musicale Belge. Marcel Poot had numerous occupations: he wrote music reviews for the newspaper “Le Peuple” and, after the War, for “La Nation Belge”. Until 1940 he was employed at the Institut National de Radiodiffusion-INR (National Radio Broadcasting Institute), at that time recently set up, where he invented several radiophonic games with the director, Theo Fleischman. After the War, he returned to the INR and was appointed president of the hearing panel until 1949. He also assumed the presidency of SABAM for many years.

After a magnificent career in music education, he left the radio in 1949 to become Director of the Conservatory of Brussels, a post where he remained until 1966. He was already a teacher of practical harmony and counterpoint in that institution at the time. From 1963 to 1980 he chaired the jury of the Queen Elisabeth Competition and from 1969 to 1976 he was rector of the Queen Elisabeth Chapel.
He was a member of the Académie Royale Flamande of Belgium. He was awarded several Belgian and foreign decorations, including the Leopold Order in Belgium and the Legion of Honour in France.

[Marie-Louise Dekeyser, © CeBeDeM ; English translation ©2004 by CeBeDeM]

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