Eugène Bozza
In Italy, Bozza studied violin, piano, and solfège in Rome at the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia.
After two years of study, he earned the Conservatory's Premier Prix for violin and secured the chair of concert master at the Pasdeloup Orchestra in 1925.
After five years of touring Europe with the orchestra, Bozza resigned and returned to the Conservatory to study conducting with Henri Rabaud.
Bozza was hired as the conductor for the Ballets Russes of Monte Carlo where he stayed for only a year before returning the Paris Conservatoire for a third and final time in 1932 to study musical composition.
As part of the prize, he lived in Rome at the Villa de Medici for the following four years and five months so he could focus on growing as a composer, developing a voice, and honing his art.
In Rome, Bozza composed several large-scale works such as his opera Leonidas, his Psalms, and the Introduzione and Toccata for piano and orchestra.
Also during this time he met his second wife, a pianist named Nelly Baude, and they had a daughter, Cécile, who went on to study at the Paris Conservatory and become a harp teacher in Denain.
"Shepherds of Provence I. Pastorale Provencale" on YouTube His style shows many traditions of the French Impressionist school mixed with the fundamental mastery of harmony of Bach.
During his tenure as director in Valenciennes, Bozza composed at least 18 étude collections for many instruments including violin, double bass, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, saxophone, trumpet, horn, and trombone.
"Recit, Sicilienne, et Rondo" on YouTube Aria, a piece written for alto saxophone and piano, draws inspiration from the works of J. S. Bach, especially the Manual for the Fantasy in F and the Pastorale in F Major (BWV 590).
The piece was written during Bozza's stay in Rome at the Villa de Medici for French saxophonist Marcel Mule.
Influenced heavily by the jazz culture of New Orleans, this piece explores many styles that might be heard walking around the city such as ragtime and dixieland.
Though he spent much of his life in the central and southern large population centers of Paris and Valenciennes, many of Bozza's stage works were premiered in Lille, located in northeastern France.
His style was normally highly accessible to listeners, students, and academics; and he composed such a mass of solo and chamber music that his name is commonly heard in studios.
Norman Heim, professor of clarinet at the University of Maryland, may have encapsulated the success of Bozza's work with this: "He is a performer's composer, in that the music is well written for the instrument, is challenging to play and enjoyable to rehearse.
"[12] A testament to the universality of his music is that when Bozza died at midnight on 28 September 1991, his woodwind quintet Scherzo was being played on Belgian Radio at the request of a listener.
Most modern writing about his past cites a single dissertation, published in 1978, by Denise Rogers Rowen about his bassoon music.
