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This year’s Festival de la Voix will be a celebration of vocal music, from Handel to gospel and everything in between, and a hub of cross-cultural exchange.
When the festival’s founder and artistic director Kerry-Anne Kutz plans each year’s program, she aims to assemble a wide variety of musical offerings. Not only are several genres represented across the festival as a whole, but contrasting styles are boldly paired together within individual concerts. Concerts, workshops, and outreach performances will take place in various venues, primarily in Montreal’s West Island between March 16th and April 13th.
At April 7th’s afternoon concert, for example, audiences will be treated to both the stylings of renowned jazz singer Karen Young and the guitar picking and harmonies of folkgrass trio Steel Rail. Kutz has seen firsthand how combinations like these help audiences to discover artists they might not otherwise encounter.
Kutz takes great pride in the way the festival combines French and English musical traditions. “I hope we can share this beautiful Québécois music with anglophones and, vice versa, share music with the francophone community that they might not necessarily hear on the radio.”
The April 13th’s concert, which will feature works by Simon Leclerc performed by Voces Boreales, QUATROM vocal quartet, and Musaïque vocal quartet, will do just that: “I wanted to honor Simon in a concert of his music. He is known to most as an arranger of music for Québec’s most significant pop artists, but he’s really, in his own right, a wonderful composer,” says Kutz. This show will pair Lelerc’s original music with his arrangements of Canadian classics like “Both Sides Now” and “Petit matin.” Kutz is looking forward to taking the stage herself as part of Musaïque. Leclerc’s vocal writing is the kind of music she says she would “love to sing for the rest of her life.”
The return of Nikamu Mamuitun, a collective of emerging First Nations and Québécois singer-songwriters, will be a highlight of this year’s festival. The success of their 2023 concert led many local teachers to request performances by the group at their schools. Kutz heard her community: this year, with the festival’s support, Nikamu Mamutuin will tour five high schools, performing in French and Inuktitut for about 4000 students and teachers. “It’s definitely about cultural exchange. It’s also about reconciliation, and a deeper understanding of the lives of the Innu people,” explains Kutz.
The emphasis on the sharing of language, culture, and top-notch singing is what makes the Festival de la Voix so unique. “One of our mandates is to bring the community together to hear beautiful music, performed by excellent artists, after a long winter,” says Kutz. Could there be a better way to welcome the coming of spring?
The Festival de la Voix will run in Montreal from March 16th-April 13th. For more information on this year’s programming and performance venues: www.festivaldelavoix.com
This page is also available in / Cette page est également disponible en:
Francais (French)
