Geneviève Joy

Who was Geneviève Joy?

Geneviève Joy was a French classical and modernist pianist who, at the end of World War II in 1945, formed a critically acclaimed duo-piano partnership with Jacqueline Robin which lasted for forty-five years, until 1990. Modernist composer Henri Dutilleux, whom she married in 1946, dedicated his Piano Sonata to her, which she recorded for Erato Records in 1988.

A native of the small commune of Bernaville in the Somme department in Northern France region of Picardy, She was the daughter of an Irish woman and a French father who served with the British Army during World War I. Geneviève Joy was a piano prodigy who was accepted to the world-renowned Conservatoire de Paris in 1932 at the age of 12.

She died in her sleep at a Paris hospital eight weeks after her 90th birthday.