Daniel Lesur

Daniel Jean-Yves Lesur (19 November 1908 – 2 July 2002) was a French organist and composer. He was the son of the composer Alice Lesur. Born in Paris, he entered the Conservatoire de Paris at age 11, studying solfège with Emile Schwartz, harmony with Jean Gallon, and composition with Georges Caussade. He also took private lessons in piano with Armand Ferté and composition with Charles Tournemire. From 1935 to 1964, he was professor of counterpoint at the Schola Cantorum under director Nestor Lejeune, becoming director himself in 1957.

In 1936, he co-founded the group La Jeune France along with composers Olivier Messiaen (with whom he would remain a lifelong friend), André Jolivet and Yves Baudrier, who were attempting to re-establish a more human and less abstract form of composition. La Jeune France developed from the avant-garde chamber music society La spirale, formed by Jolivet, Messiaen, and Daniel-Lesur the previous year.

That same year he, together with Jean Langlais and Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, gave the first performance of Olivier Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur.Between 1927 and 1937 he seconded Tournemire at the organ of Ste. Clotilde, Paris, and was organist of the Benedictine Abbey of Paris, 1937–44. Daniel-Lesur also served as director of the Opéra National de Paris from 1971 to 1973.

His opera Andrea del Sarto (1968) received the composition prize of the City of Paris in 1969. In 1973, he received the Prix Samuel Rousseau of the Académie des Beaux Arts. In 1982, he was elected member of the Institut de France.

He died in Paris.