Tristan Foison (born 1961 in France) is a French musician and composer. He is most famous for attempting to claim a composition by Alfred Desenclos as his own, but actually fabricated many details about his life.
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Early life
Foison was born and raised in France. His mother is Michele Foison, a professional musician and student of Olivier Messiaen. He studied piano with Messiaen's wife, Yvonne Loriod, from age 5 to 17. He studied composition with Henri Dutilleux, Claude Berot and Pierre Boulez. At age 9 he made his piano debut, when he was invited by Princess Grace Kelly to perform with the Monaco Symphony Orchestra. He lectured on piano at the age of 22 at the Conservatoire de Centre de Paris and earned a doctoral degree in musicology from the Sorbonne Institute in 1985. He also earned a Baccalaureate of Philosophy and Literature from College La Fountaine in Paris. He studied acting at the Conservatory of Dramatic Arts. Further studies include music therapy with Alain Cuisenier, pedagogy with Maurice Martenot and mime with Marcel Marceau. He now lives near Paris.
Awards
He claimed to have won the Peabody Mason International Piano Competition, the Geneva International Music Competition and the Georges Bizet Competition, as well as conducted orchestras including London Symphony Orchestra, the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra, the Prague Symphony Orchestra or the Orchestre de Paris. In 1987 was chosen by Vladimir Ashkenazy to perform with him the Concerto for 2 Pianos by Mozart with the Paris Orchestra. Later that year, he emigrated to the US and settled in Atlanta. He made his living as a musician, worked at the Peggy Still School of Music and was music director of the Rome Symphony Orchestra in Rome, Georgia. He performed in concerts on the piano and the Ondes Martenot and composed classical music.
Compositions
The "Desenclos Incident"
On 18 May 1999 the Requiem by Tristan Foison was performed by the Capitol Hill Chorale of Washington, D.C. and was marked as the world premiere of the composition, which Tristan Foison claimed to have written. The Requiem was recognised immediately in the concert as plagiarism, because a person from the audience had sung the work a year earlier with his chorus and knew that it was composed by French composer Alfred Desenclos. After verification, Foison was confronted by the choral director. Shortly after this talk he vanished from the classical music scene. All known biographical information comes from his curriculum vitae.
Aftermath
After the discovery of the Desenclos fraud, journalists checked his CV. They found that the following other claims were false: