Geneviève Joy (French:[ʒənvjɛvʒwa]; 4 October 1919 – 27 November 2009)[1][2] was a French classical and modernist pianist who, at the end of World War II in 1945, formed a critically acclaimed duo-piano partnership[3] with Jacqueline Robin which lasted for forty-five years, until 1990. The composer Henri Dutilleux, whom she married in 1946, dedicated his Piano Sonata to her, which she recorded for Erato Records in 1988.
A native of the small commune of Bernaville in the Somme department in Northern France region of Picardy,[4] she was the daughter of Lina Breton from Bernaville and her Irish husband Charles Joy who served with the British Army during World War I.[5] Geneviève Joy was a piano child prodigy who was accepted to the Conservatoire de Paris in 1932 at the age of 12.
