Odile Pierre

Odile Marie-Pascale Pierre ([ɔ.dil pjɛʁ]; 12 March 1932 – 29 February 2020) was a French organist, composer and academic teacher.

At age seven, she attended a recital on the Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Church of St. Ouen, Rouen, by Marcel Dupré and then took an interest in the instrument.

[4] She attended the Conservatoire de Rouen [fr], where she studied with Norbert Dufourcq,[2] Maurice Duruflé,[5] Noël Gallon and Marcel Lanquetuit,[4] and the Conservatoire de Paris, where she with Dupré, awarded a first prize for organ and improvisation in 1955, with unanimous approval of the jury, to which Jeanne Demessieux belonged.

She was the organist at La Madeleine, Paris, from 1969 to 1979, succeeding Demessieux[7] in a post which Gabriel Fauré and Camille Saint-Saëns held before.

[2] She performed at major festivals and played as an organ soloist with conductors including A. de Bavier, Pierre Dervaux, Lorin Maazel and Georges Prêtre.

[9] In the 1980s, she recorded at the organ [nl] at the Nieuwe Kerk in Katwijk aan Zee, built by Van den Heuvel.