Fédération Québécoise
des Amis de l'Orgue

• Promote the pipe organ in Quebec through artistic, didactic and pedagogic activities namely concerts, conferences, master classes, etc.
• Support the creation, the interpretation and the publication of original material for pipe organ and promote the rediscovery of forgotten works.
• Support pipe organ construction and restoration projects belonging to non-profit organizations in order to inform the public about the artistic and patrimonial value of some instruments.
• Publish Mixtures, the liaison bulletin dedicated to pipe organ.
• Receive gifts, bequests and other contributions in support of the Federation's goals.

Press release: An Organ Federation is set up
Text prepared by Denis Morneau and published in several Quebec newspapers



On June 9th, 1994, the founding meeting of the Fédération Québécoise des Amis de l'Orgue was being held in the community center of St. Dominique church in Quebec City. Set up to promote the pipe organ, its repertoire and its artists in the province of Quebec, the FQAO will pursue its mission through its regional associations who are its founding members. These associations are are located in Québec City (Amis de l'orgue), St. Hyacinthe (Pro Organo), Trois-Rivières (Pro Organo), Rimouski (Amis de l'orgue), Saguenay-Lac-St. Jean (Amis de l'orgue) and Montreal (Amis de l'orgue). For many of them, active for the last quarter-century, they proposed concerts and other activities related to the organ in the Quebec cultural scene.

The some forty persons involved in this project for the last three years have launched a truly "highway" for exchanges, collaboration and information exclusively dedicated to the pipe organ.

The organization of a Quebec Organ Day, probably the first step to what would become an annual convention and the publication of a magazine are among the first projects the FQAO will develop in the upcoming months. To organize these activities, the general meeting of the FQAO has elected a 9-member board of directors headed by Gaston Arel and on which board all regional associations, concert series organizers and individual members are represented.

Genesis of the Federation
Speech given by Gaston Arel at the founding meeting, on June 9th, 1994



While preparing for this meeting, I have uncovered, by accident, a text by Lucien Poirier, published, in March 1985, in the Bulletin des Amis de l'orgue de Québec. This text, titled "For a rallying project of all French associations dedicated to the organ", was written following Mr. Poirier's attendance, in the summer of 1984, to the FFAO (Fédération Française des Amis de l'Orgue) annual convention held in Châlons-sur-Marne, in France. His propositions are still pertinent. One of them is the importance of grouping into one organization as many associations dedicated to the organ as possible. Not only have some regional associations already joined the FQAO but the FQAO held its annual convention in Quebec in 1991. Everybody remembers the complete success of this convention while the European attendees discovered Quebec's organ heritage.

In meetings preceding this 1991 convention, Rev Pierre Vollotton, then President of the FFAO, often repeated that it was time for all Quebec associations to group themselves into a federation similar to the FFAO in order to increase and to diversify information, coordination and exchange activities.

With the help of my dear friend, Fr Antoine Bouchard, and other persons I have introduced to you earlier, we set up a task force. Three meetings were held on October 15th, 1991, November 24th, 1991, and December 6th, 1992 where ideas were exchanged and what would be the mission of such a federation. On January 29th, 1993, reports were sent out to many of you for comments. On May 16th, a fourth meeting was held to discuss the feedback received. It was then clear to us that the creation of a federation was largely supported.

Mandate was then given to Marc-Aurèle Thibault, then President of Les Amis de l'orgue de Québec and who has experience in this matter, to prepare the charter request papers and to send them to the General Inspector of Financial Institutions of Quebec so that our charter could be granted in the shortest delays. The request was accepted and the legal charter was received on September 14th, 1993.

If the FQAO was legally created, the most difficult task laid ahead. It was becoming urgent to produce statutes and regulations before calling today's meeting. Due to difficulties to set up a meeting with the founding committee (sickness, rude winter), I have taken the initiative to ask two members of the Montreal association, Réal Gauthier and Antoine Leduc, to help me write a first draft of the regulations. I take this opportunity to warmly thank them for their invaluable collaboration. This document, submitted to the founding committee in two meetings (April 11th and May 11th), will be presented and discussed later.

Finally, on May 25th, the invitation you received for this meeting was sent out to about twenty organizations, groups and individuals.

With the founding of the FQAO, June 9th, 1994 will be a date to remember in Quebec's organ history.

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The Fédération Québécoise des Amis de l'orgue (FQAO) was founded on June 9, 1994, in Quebec City, by organists Gaston Arel, Antoine Bouchard, Robert P. Girard, Jean-Guy Proulx and Gilles Rioux, with the help and support of music lovers Denis Morneau and Marc-Aurèle Thibault.

The Federation brings together professional organists, students, musicologists, organ builders, historians and organ music lovers along with organ concert societies and organ music publishers.

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The honorary members are:



Gaston Arel
Abbé Antoine Bouchard (1932-2015)
Soeur Pauline Charron, r.s.r.
Raymond Daveluy (1926-2016)
Gilles Fortin
Noëlla Genest
Robert Patrick Girard
Dom André Laberge, o.s.b.
Claude Lagacé (1918-2019)
Frère Aurèle Laramée, f.m.s. (1928-2001)
Claude Lavoie (1918-)
Bernard Piché (1908-1989)
Antoine Reboulot (1914-2002)
Gilles Rioux
Joseph Guy Roy (1929-1999)

The FQAO is a member of the Fédération Francophone des Amis de l'Orgue (FFAO), its French counterpart that regroups 220 French and francophile associations representing more than 12 000 members.

The members of the Board of Directors for the year 2023-2024 are:

President : Julien Girard (Montréal)
Vice-President : Eric Vachon (Québec)
Secretary : Cécile L'Écuyer (Estrie)
Treasurer : Jocelyn Lafond (Drummond)
Administrators : Harold Thibeault (Rimouski) Vacant (Mauricie, Associates, Individuals)