Guillaume Bouzignac

Guillaume Bouzignac (c. 1587 – c. 1643) was a French composer.

Bouzignac was probably born in 1587 in Saint-Nazaire-d'Aude. He studied at the Cathedral of Narbonne until 1604, and was choirmaster at the Cathedrals of Angoulême, Bourges, Tours, and Clermont-Ferrand.[1]

His motets are preserved in two manuscripts.[2] His motets are highly distinctive: "Simply stated, there is no other music of the time that looks the same on the page or sounds the same as the motets of Bouzignac."[3] "One name in this period rises above those of his contemporaries for all sacred music, including Masses: that of Guillaume Bouzignac."[4] His dialogue motets, such as Unus ex vobis and Dum silentium, are small scale oratorios which anticipate Giacomo Carissimi, and then Marc-Antoine Charpentier (1643–1704) two generations later.