Yvonne Desportes was a French

French people

The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...

 writer and composer. She was born in Coburg

Coburg

Coburg is a town located on the Itz River in Bavaria, Germany. Its 2005 population was 42,015. Long one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined with Bavaria by popular vote in 1920...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, and studied with Noel and Jean Galton, Maurice Emmanuel

Maurice Emmanuel

Maurice Emmanuel was a French composer of classical music.Brought up in Dijon, Marie François Maurice Emmanuel became a chorister at Beaune cathedral after his family moved to the city in 1869. Subsequently he went to Paris, and he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where his composition teacher...

, Paul Dukas

Paul Dukas

Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...

 and Marcel Dupre

Marcel Dupré

Marcel Dupré , was a French organist, pianist, composer, and pedagogue.-Biography:Marcel Dupré was born in Rouen . Born into a musical family, he was a child prodigy. His father Albert Dupré was organist in Rouen and a friend of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, who built an organ in the family house when...

 at the Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 Conservatory. She won the Prix de Rome

Prix de Rome

The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...

 in 1932 and lived in Rome

Rome

Rome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated city and comune, with over 2.7 million residents in . The city is located in the central-western portion of the Italian Peninsula, on the Tiber River within the Lazio region of Italy.Rome's history spans two and a half...

from 1933-37. In 1943 she returned to Paris where she took a position teaching at the Paris Conservatory. Besides teaching and working as a composer, Desportes also wrote a number of textbooks. She died in Paris in 1993.

Works

Desportes composed over five hundred works, including opera, symphonies, ballets, concertos, chamber music, and vocal and solo instrumental music. Selected works include:

• Passionette: pour chant et piano
• La Danse De Xylonette
• Sonate Pour Un Bapteme