100 years ago, the maestro Ipharès Blain was born

Son of the pianist Duly Blain and nephew of the great maestro Augustin Bruno, born on March 22, 1926, in Port-au-Prince, Ipharès Blain grew up surrounded by sheet music and instruments. According to testimonies collected by Adrien Berthaud, “his childhood unfolded in a climate of music, of sounds and harmonies.” At fourteen, without completing formal academic training, he composed his first slow méringue, Pour une Fleur, dedicated to a friend, Ida Nazaire, whom he would marry in 1947. His second composition, Pour toi maman, is dedicated to his mother Degrâce Lacombe, whose influence on his musical vocation is mentioned in several accounts.

In 1956, thanks to a scholarship awarded during the presidency of Paul E. Magloire, he joined the Schola Cantorum in Paris. Four years of intensive training allowed him to obtain a master’s degree in harmony, musical morphology, counterpoint, and fugue. Upon his return, still according to Berthaud, he is “an expert in wind instruments, more precisely, the alto clarinet, and the