JAQUE, Rhene

Rhené Jaque, the pen name of Marguerite Marie Alice Cartier, was a Canadian musician, composer and music educator living in Quebec.

Born in Beauharnois, she joined the Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary and, in 1938, took the name Sister Jacques-René. She studied at the École supérieure de musique d'Outremont with Claude Champagne, Marvin Duchow, Louis Bailly and Camille Couture. Cartier took the pen name Rhené Jaque at Champagnes' insistence that her music would not sell if people knew she was both a woman and a member of a religious order, and so he suggested she simply invert her nun's name.

In 1943, she began teaching violin and music theory at the École de musique Vincent-d'Indy. She obtained a BMus degree in 1949 and a Lauréat in music in 1955. In the summer of 1972, Jaque studied composition at the Académie internationale d'été de Nice, France with Tony Aubin.