French-born Renaissance composer and music theorist. Compiled Calvinist hymn tunes. Commonly credited for composing “Old 100th” (or “Old Hundredth”). Born 1510, died 1560.
Loys Bourgeois was born and died in Paris. He stayed in Geneva around 1551. He worked as a singing master and cantor at Cathédrale Saint-Pierre Genève, Calvin's church. He led the singing of psalms during worship.
He composed new melodies for the psalms set to verse by Theodore Beza or he arranged Latin melodies to adapt them to these texts. But he also corrected certain melodies of his predecessor Guillaume Franc on texts by Clément Marot, which earned him reprimands from the Council of Geneva and even 24 hours in prison for "having corrected the psalms".