Title page of artifact from the Freedman Collection.
Alexis de Garaudé was a French singer, composer and teacher, active in Paris during the end of the Classical and into the Romantic Era. Garaudé was born March 21,1779 in France, where he spent his entire career. Here, he studied composition under Giuseppe Maria Cambini and Anton Reicha, as well as voice under Pierre Garat and Girolamo Crescentini. This training eventually landed him a job as a vocal teacher at the prestigious Paris Conservatory from 1816 up until his retirement in 1841. As a composer, he produced a handful of vocal works, as well as a few piano and chamber works. As a teacher, he wrote multiple pedagogy books, and led many of his students to successful careers. One of his most notable students, Clotilde Colombelle, won first prize at the Paris Conservatory singing competition in 1820. A year later, she bore Garaudé a son, and died shortly after in 1821. His son, Alexis-Albert-Gauthier de Garaudé, also a composer, was best known for his piano reductions of orchestral scores. On March 23, 1852, Alexis Garaudé passed away in Paris.