Jacques Hétu has been played on NTS shows including Tafelmusik w/ Francesco Fusaro, with Ombres = Shadows = Schatten = Ombre first played on 20 January 2024.

Jacques Hétu (August 8, 1938 – February 9, 2010) was a Canadian composer and music educator from Trois-Rivières, Quebec. He was nominated for a 1989 Juno Award in the Best Classical Composition category. In 1989, he was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and in 2001 he was made an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Hétu began his professional training at the University of Ottawa where he was a pupil of Jules Martel from 1955-1956. He entered the Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal in 1956 where he studied for five years with such teachers as Melvin Berman (oboe), Isabelle Delorme (harmony), Jean Papineau-Couture (fugue), Clermont Pépin (composition and counterpoint), and Georges Savaria (piano). He also studied at the Tanglewood Music Center during the summer of 1959 with Lukas Foss. In 1961 he won several important awards including first prize at the Quebec Music Festivals composition competition, a grant from the Canada Council, and the Prix d'Europe. The latter two awards enabled him to pursue studies in France at the École Normale de Musique de Paris from 1961-1963 with Henri Dutilleux and at the Paris Conservatory with Olivier Messiaen in 1962-1963.

Hétu died of lung cancer at his home in Saint-Hippolyte on February 9, 2010. He is survived by his wife, Jeanne Desaulniers, and five children.

Hétu joined the music faculty at Laval University in 1963, remaining there through 1977. He taught music composition at the University of Montreal in 1972-1973 and 1978-1979. From 1979-2000 he was a professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal, notably serving as the director of that school's Music Department from 1980–1982 and 1986-1988.