Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny

Pierre-Alexandre Monsigny (French pronunciation: [pjɛʁ alɛksɑ̃dʁ mɔ̃siɲi]; (1729-10-17)17 October 1729 – (1817-01-14)14 January 1817) was a French composer and a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts (1813). He is considered alongside André Grétry and François-André Danican Philidor to have been the founder of a new musical genre, the opéra comique, laying a path for other French composers such as François-Adrien Boieldieu, Daniel-François-Esprit Auber, Charles Gounod, Georges Bizet, and Jules Massenet in this genre.