Francis Battah

About

The artist

Francis Battah is a Montreal-based Quebec composer and pianist. After studying classical and jazz piano, he completed composition degrees at the Université de Montréal and McGill University, where his teachers included Denys Bouliane, Alan Belkin, Denis Gougeon, and Ana Sokolović. His catalogue spans solo, chamber, vocal, and orchestral music, with commissions from organizations including the Orchestre métropolitain, Orchestre de l'Agora, Quatuor Bozzini, Quasar, and the Canadian Music Centre. His writing draws on jazz, microtonality, the piano traditions of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, melody, modality, literature, and what he calls an imagined folklore. Battah won the SOCAN Foundation Grand Prize in 2021, the Andrew Svoboda Prize in 2022, and the Pierre-Mantha Scholarship in 2023. He was nominated for an Opus Award as Composer of the Year in 2025 and reached the final of McGill's 2025 Graham Sommer Competition, where Paramirabo premiered Mutations. His current work includes a residency with Quatuor Mémoire and the April 2026 premiere of his String Quartet No. 5 in Montreal. Since 2023, he has taught ear training at Cégep de Saint-Laurent. The exact Spotify identity contains four distinct primary release containers from November 2020 through December 2023: one album and three provider-classified singles. They include Toccatas & Fantaisies, Francis Battah: Six Préludes, and Traduttore, Traditore. His scores are published by Doberman-Yppan, Nouveau Théâtre musical, and the Canadian Music Centre. English and French copy and translation provenance were reviewed together, Spotify media is rendered with provider attribution, professional inquiries are directed to the official site, and no direct contact details are republished.