Marcel Poot
Belgian composer, teacher and musician was born in Vilvoorde on 7 May 1901. At the time of Poot's birth, his father was director of the Royal Flemish Theatre in Brussels. His father pushed him to train as a musician, but he was slow to learn and it took two attempts to get him admitted to the Brussels Conservatory, where he studied composition and instrumentation. Later he studied with Paul Dukas in Paris.
At the start of his career, he worked as a freelance composer, teacher and reviewer. He became a member of Les Synthétistes - the Belgian equivalent of Les Six.
Poot became known for the first time outside Belgium in 1934 with his Ouverture joyeuse, dedicated to Dukas.
From 1939 he taught at Brussels Conservatory, where he was director from 1949 until 1966.
He founded (in 1960) and was the first president of the Union of Belgian Composers, and he was chairman of the jury (1963-1980) of the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition, for which he wrote several commissioned works.
Marcel Poot died in Brussels on 12 June 1988, aged eighty-seven.