Marcel Poot was born in Vilvoorde on 7 May 1901 and died in Brussels on 12 June 1988. As the son of Jan Poot, director of the Royal Flemish Theatre, he grew up in an artistic milieu. He took his first music lessons with the organist Gerard Nauwelaerts and subsequently studied solfège, piano and harmony from 1916 to 1919 at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels with Arthur De Greef, José Sevenans and Martin Lunssens. His first prizes in counterpoint (1922) and fugue (1924) were earned at the Royal Conservatory in Antwerp with Lodewijk Mortelmans. He also studied composition and orchestration privately with Paul Gilson. Together, Poot and Gilson published La Revue Musicale Belge, a periodical that appeared starting in 1925. In that same year, Poot and seven other of Gilson’s students set up the group known as Les Synthétistes, which aimed to create a synthesis of the achievements of current musical evolutions, without sacrificing their individuality. In 1930, Poot won the Rubens Prize, which allowed him to study for three years with Paul Dukas at the Ecole Normale de Musique in Paris.
Poot began his career at the State Secondary School in Vilvoorde and also taught piano, solfège and music history at the music academy in that city. He taught practical harmony (1939) and counterpoint (1940-1949) at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels before becoming director of that institution (1949-1966). Besides this, Poot held a number of important functions. He was a lecturer at the Institut Supérieur des Arts Décoratifs, headmaster of the Muziekkapel Koningin Elisabeth (1970-1976), a member of the Royal Flemish Academy for Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts, a jury member for the Queen Elisabeth Competition (1963-1981), chairman of SABAM (composers’ rights organisation), the Union of Belgian Composers and CISAC (the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), and he was a jury member for various composition competitions.

Selective bibliography
- art. Marcel Poot, in CeBeDeM en zijn aangesloten componisten, ed. by D. VON VOLBORTH- DANYS, Brussels, 1980
- A. CORBET, H. HEUGHEBAERT, art. Poot, Marcel, in Algemene Muziek Encyclopedie, ed. by J. ROBIJNS and M. ZIJSTRA, 8, Haarlem, 1983, p. 161-164
- H. HEUGHEBAERT, Ontmoetingen met Vlaamse komponisten, in Vlaams Muziektijdschrift, 22, 1, 1970, p. 3-12
- C. MERTENS, D. VON VOLBORTH- DANYS, art. Poot, Marcel, in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, ed. by S. SADIE, Londen, 2001

©2003 Frederic Delmotte, for Flanders Music Centre and MATRIX