Musique québécoise - my/maSCENA

Quartom: The Magic Ingredients

By Caroline Rodgers on 1 December 2016 Interviews, Musique québécoise, Vocal

It’s hard not to like Quartom. How could you not like these four convivial pals, who crack jokes in between melodious harmonies? Wherever they go, they leave smiling listeners behind them. La Scena Musicale met with Quartom at the Rialto Theatre for an interview and photo session, punctuated by silly antics and contagious laughter. A cappella quartet Quartom, formed by baritones Benoit Le Blanc and Julien Patenaude, tenor Gaétan Sauvageau, and bass Philippe Martel, is on a hot roll with the release of their third album, Acte III, on ATMA Classique, as well as a series of shows that will…

La Scena Musicale Team, Photo: Marc Bourgeois

La Scena Musicale Turns 20! Rising Stars Gala 2016: Highlights

By Hassan Laghcha on 1 December 2016 Canadian Music, Classical Music, Concert Reviews, Interviews, Musique québécoise

La Scena Musicale has reached a major milestone: its 20th birthday. The gala-concert celebration on November 24 at the Salle Pierre-Mercure of the Centre Pierre-Péladeau was brimming with youthful optimism. Many up-and-coming classical musicians and opera singers animated this event, which was dedicated to the late journalist and author Lucie Renaud, one of La Scena Musicale’s most brilliant collaborators. “We launched La Scena Musicale at a time when the future of classical music seemed uncertain, and our mission was to inform, educate, inspire, and to promote classical music and make it accessible to the public, to tap into the imaginations…

La Scena Musicale 20th Anniversary – Gala LA RELÈVE / RISING STARS

By La Scena Events on 18 November 2016 Arts Industry, Canadian Music, Chamber Music, Classical, Classical Music, La Scena Online, Musique québécoise, Piano, Scena Jazz, Violin, Vocal

La Scena Musicale celebrates its 20th anniversary with the first edition of Gala LA RELÈVE/RISING STARS, a benefit concert on Thursday, November 24, 2016 at 7:30 PM at Salle Pierre-Mercure of the Centre Pierre-Péladeau featuring some of Canada’s future star musicians, many of whom have won recent national competitions. Soprano Chelsea Rus, baritone Hugo Laporte, clarinetist David Dias da Silva, violinist Joshua Peters, pianist Emily Oulousian and Piano Caméléons will perform; pianist Michael McMahon will accompany the singers. “I’m very excited with our line-up of six young musicians and duo,” said Wah Keung Chan, founder of La Scena Musicale. “Each…

Jean-Michel Dubé on André Mathieu

By Camilo Lanfranco on 1 November 2016 Canadian Music, Discovery CDs, Interviews, Musique québécoise, Piano

Jean-Michel Dubé is the youngest in a family of five children, four of whom are pianists. At the age of three, he started studying piano at home with his mother who was herself a pianist. At age seven, he entered the Conservatoire de musique de Québec. In 2015, he was awarded the grand prize at the Concours Hélène-Roberge, which allowed him to record, with the help of Espace XXI and Aramusique, the works of André Mathieu. Mathieu’s complete piano works have never been recorded before, making this disc a world premiere. How did you arrive to André Mathieu’s work? The idea…

James Ehnes, Photo: Ben Ealovega

Canadians Abroad: November 2016

By Kiersten van Vliet on 1 November 2016 Canadian Music, La Scena Spotlight, Musique québécoise

By popular demand, La Scena Musicale is happy to bring back the Canadians Abroad feature section, where we will keep tabs on your favourite Canucks as they make their mark around the world. If you have any leads about Canadians abroad or wish for us to include a particular artist or ensemble in an upcoming issue, please send an email to [email protected]. Yannick Nézet-Séguin Montreal-born maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin begins the month in Munich guest conducting the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra in a program of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 2, Mendelssohn’s Symphony No. 4 “Italian,” and Bartók’s Violin Concerto No. 1 with…

Valérie Milot, Photo: Alain Lefort

Valérie Milot: Beyond the Harp

By Caroline Rodgers on 1 November 2016 Contemporary, Interviews, Musique québécoise, Orchestral

Valérie Milot defines herself as a musician first and a harpist second. At age 31, she is nothing less than the most visible and active ambassador of the harp that Quebec has seen in recent history. She is the soloist-in-residence for Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain for the 2016–17 season. Music is important in the Milot family. They even play it together. “My father was a great lover of classical music,” she says. “He played several instruments, including classical guitar. We, his three children, took introductory music classes before we even went to school. It was part of our family life: we…

20th Anniversary: An Indispensable Voice for 20 Years

By Caroline Rodgers on 1 November 2016 Canadian Music, Classical Music, La Scena Spotlight, Musique québécoise

Readers, know this: like all of our issues, the magazine that you hold in your hands is the result of a small miracle produced by a very small team. For twenty years, while many publications have unfortunately shut their doors, or exist now only in digital form, La Scena Musicale stayed the course, despite the well-known issues facing print media, be it readers’ changing habits or lower advertising revenues, among other problems. Each of our issues was the result of the efforts of true enthusiasts, a persistent band of people who devote their time and perseverance so that the classical…

20th Anniversary: Quotes from LSM Ambassadors

By La Scena Musicale Team on 1 November 2016 Classical Music, Interviews, Musique québécoise

Keri-Lynn Wilson: Congratulations to the marvellous La Scena Musicale for the last twenty years of your extraordinary publication. The musical world is extremely enriched by your passionate reporting on arts in Quebec. Thank you for being an indispensable resource for sharing the musical experience outside of the symphony hall, the opera stage, or the jazz club and for inspiring a new public to participate in current events. With La Scena Musicale, the arts have a future! Bravo! Stéphane Tétreault: It is with great pleasure and pride that I support La Scena Musicale. For two decades, La Scena Musicale provides invaluable…

Celebrating the Metro and The OSM’s New Octobass (Review)

By Rebecca Anne Clark on 21 October 2016 Concert Reviews, Contemporary, Musique québécoise, Orchestral

Last night was the first performance of the OSM’s concert celebrating 50 years of the Montreal metro system, which first welcomed passengers in October 1966. To commemorate the occasion, the OSM and the STM co-commissioned two new works: José Evagelista’s orchestral piece Accelerando, and Robert Normandeau’s electroacoustic work Tunnel Azur. While this concert marks more than one historic premiere – Tunnel Azur is the first electroacoustic piece ever to be commissioned by the OSM and to be presented at the Maison Symphonique (read LSM’s article on the new work here) – the main question on Montreal music lovers’ minds seems to be,…

Robert Normandeau, Photo: Bernard Préfontaine

Robert Normandeau: Metro Music

By Caroline Rodgers on 1 October 2016 Contemporary, Interviews, Musique québécoise

For the first time in its history, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal will showcase a piece in which the musicians won’t play a single note. Tunnel Azur is an acousmatic composition created by Robert Normandeau on commission by the OSM and the STM. The ten minute long Tunnel Azur celebrates, and is entirely inspired by, the 50-year history of the Montréal metro. “With permission from the STM, I had the privilege to go and record the sounds of the metro at night, afterhours. It is a universe that nobody knows, because the metro is closed at night,” says Normandeau. “I…

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