Charles Bordes
Charles Bordes was a French musicologist, composer, and music educator, born in Vouvray on May 12, 1863. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, where Antoine Marmontel taught him piano and César Franck taught him composition.
From 1887 to 1890, Bordes was organist and music director at the cathedral in Nogent. He later served for many years as organist at the Church of Saint-Gervais in Paris, where he founded a choral ensemble. From 1892, he held annual Holy Week events featuring French and Italian Renaissance masses.
In the mid-1890s, Bordes helped found the Schola Cantorum in Paris. He later helped establish similar music schools in Avignon in 1899 and Montpellier in 1905. In Montpellier in 1906, he organized France’s first Congress of Folk Song.
Bordes published a collection of Basque folk songs, Archives of the Basque Tradition, in 1890. His compositions include vocal works, particularly settings of poems by Paul Verlaine, church music, and piano pieces. He died in Toulon on November 8, 1909.