Opening Concert: Les Violons du Roy, Tétreault & From - SOLD OUT

Concert

The official Festival opener features the always-dazzling Les Violons du Roy, cellist Stéphane Tétreault, and pianist Henry From, winner of the 2022 Orford Music Award. Interspersed with the music will be excerpts from Don Quixote performed by theatre and movie icon Normand Chouinard. The concert will be a real treat for the ears and fuel for the imagination.

The Complete Experience!
Starting at 5PM, join the artists at Espace Yves Trudeau for the summer’s visual arts show openings. Includes appetizers and one drink. Then take your seats for the opening concert.

Add the Complete Experience to your cart when you purchase your tickets.

PROGRAM

Repertoire overview

AVISON, Concerto Grosso No. 5 in D Minor, op. 6
BACH, Keyboard Concerto No. 5 in F Minor, BWV 1056
TELEMANN, Ouverture-Suite Burlesque de Don Quichotte, TWV 55:G10
GRIEG, “Holberg Suite”, op. 40
SALLINEN, Chamber Music III – The Nocturnal Dances of Don Juan Quixote, op. 58

Artists

Stéphane Tétreault
In addition to innumerous awards and honours, Stéphane Tétreault is the recipient of the prestigious 2019 Virginia Parker Prize from the Canada Council for the Arts and was a nominee for the Oscar Morawetz Award for Excellence in Music Performance from the Ontario Arts Council. He is also the laureate of the 2022 Prix Opus for “Performer of the Year”, awarded by the Conseil québécois de la musique and accompanied by a Canada Council grant. In 2018, he received the Maureen Forrester Next Generation Award in recognition of his sensitivities with music, his enviable technique, and his considerable communication skills. In 2015, he was selected as laureate of the Classe d’Excellence de violoncelle Gautier Capuçon from the Fondation Louis Vuitton, and received the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto Career Development Award. Stéphane was the very first recipient of the $50,000 Fernand-Lindsay Career Award as well as the Choquette-Symcox Award laureate in 2013. First Prize winner at the 2007 Standard Life-Montreal Symphony Orchestra Competition, he was named “Révélation” Radio-Canada in classical music, was chosen as Personality of the Week by La Presse newspaper, and awarded the Prix Opus New Artist of the Year.

Chosen as the first ever Soloist-in-Residence of the Orchestre Métropolitain, he performed alongside Yannick Nézet-Séguin during the 2014-2015 season. In 2016, Stéphane made his debut with the Philadelphia Orchestra under the direction of Maestro Nézet-Séguin and performed at the prestigious Gstaad Menuhin Festival in Switzerland. During the 2017-2018 season, he took part in the Orchestre Métropolitain’s first European tour with Maestro Nézet-Séguin and made his debut with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.

Stéphane has performed with violinist and conductor Maxim Vengerov and pianists Alexandre Tharaud, Jan Lisiecki, Louis Lortie, Roger Vignoles, Marc-André Hamelin, Charles Richard-Hamelin and John Lenehan and has worked with conductors Michael Tilson Thomas, Paul McCreesh, John Storgårds, Rune Bergmann, Kensho Watanabe and Tung-Chieh Chuang amongst many others. He has participated in a number of masterclasses, notably with cellists Gautier Capuçon and Frans Helmerson.

His debut CD recorded with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra and conductor Fabien Gabel was chosen as “Editor’s Choice” in the March 2013 issue of Gramophone Magazine. His second album with pianist Marie-Ève Scarfone, featuring works from Haydn, Schubert, and Brahms, was chosen as Gramophone Magazine’s “Critic’s Choice 2016” and recognized as one of the best albums of the year. In 2017, Stéphane partnered with harpist Valérie Milot and violinist Antoine Bareil for a third album dedicated to Trios for Violin, Cello and Harp. All three of his albums received nominations at the ADISQ Gala.

Stéphane was a student of the late cellist and conductor Yuli Turovsky for more than 10 years. He holds a master’s degree in music performance from the University of Montreal.

Stéphane plays the 1707 “Countess of Stainlein, Ex-Paganini” Stradivarius cello, on generous loan by Mrs. Sophie Desmarais.

Henry From
Henry From is a pianist and composer currently studying with John O’Conor at the Glenn Gould School as a recipient of the Bresler Scholarship. He previously studied with Amanda Chan and Edward Top at the Vancouver Academy of Music. Henry was named by the CBC among its Top 30 Musicians under 30 in 2019, after winning first prize in the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Manulife Competition. Other honours include the Tabor Award at the Verbier Festival in 2021, Grand Prize and Public Choice Award at the Orford Music Award in 2022, and a Davidson Fellow Scholarship in 2022. As a composer, he has received top prizes from the SOCAN Young Composer Awards and the BMI Student Composer Competition. Recent performance highlights include soloist in Brahms Piano Concerto no. 1 with the Seattle Symphony, solo recitals at the Seattle Chamber Music Society and the Rockport Chamber Music Festival, and premieres of his compositions by the Vancouver and Winnipeg Symphony orchestras. Next season he will perform as soloist with the Royal Conservatory Orchestra in Koerner Hall as a winner of the Glenn Gould School Concerto Competition. Henry is delighted to be performing with Les Violons du Roy for Orford’s enthusiastic audience.

Normand Chouinard

Normand Chouinard is a man of unfailing optimism and incredible talent who’s had an extremely extensive career, from the small screen to the stage. The actor, producer and director was behind the adaptation of Ubu roi presented at the TNM in winter 2007, which received rave reviews. He also directed the musical theater production Edgar et ses fantômes, which saw the participation of Les Violons du Roy, in december 2010, as well as André Gagnon and Michel Tremblay’s opera Nelligan for the Festival d’opéra de Québec in July 2012. The opera was also taken up by the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde during the 2019-2020 season.

Normand Chouinard was born in Quebec, in 1948. During his Law studies, he fell into experimental theater and collective creation by joining the Troupe des 13. After years of hesitation, he finally auditioned for the Conservatoire de Québec, accompanied by his good friend Rémy Girard. Sensitive and extremely versatile, Chouinard has had the chance to play in just about all the theaters in Montreal, playing a magnificent Don Quixote, among others.

Whether we’re thinking of the TV series Du Tac au tac (1976-1981), comedy show Samedi de rire (1984-1989) or Les Poupées russes (2000-2007), the world of television has always followed him. He also played on this big screen in Un homme et son péché and Ma vie en cinémascope.

Normand Chouinard’s go-getter attitude keeps him moving forward and involved in a host of new projects. He has shown great devotion and interest in what goes on behind the curtain, participating without hesitation in various boards of directors for the evolution and consolidation of the profession. The former Director of the Conservatoire d’art dramatique de Montréal (1995-2001) is, without a shadow of doubt, a dedicated idealist.

Source : Éditions Québec Amérique

Les Violons du Roy
The chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy takes its name from the renowned string orchestra of the court of the French kings. The group, which has a core membership of fifteen players, was brought together in 1984 by founding conductor Bernard Labadie, now styled founding conductor, and continues under music director Jonathan Cohen to specialize in the vast repertoire of music for chamber orchestra. Using copies of period bows on modern instruments, the ensemble plays works from the Baroque and Classical period with an approach strongly influenced by current research into performance practice in the 17th and 18th centuries. The orchestra also regularly delves into the repertoire of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Les Violons du Roy is at the heart of the music scene in Quebec City and a regular feature on the Montreal cultural calendar. The orchestra is known throughout North America thanks to the many broadcasts of its concerts and recordings on CBC, Radio-Canada, and the American network NPR. The ensemble makes regular visits to New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles and has performed in South Korea, China, and dozens of times in Europe at such legendary venues as the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam and the Berlin Philharmonie.

Les Violons du Roy’s discography boasts 36 titles, including three Juno Award–winning albums and one Félix Award winner. Twelve recordings have appeared on the Dorian label, and eleven under the ATMA label. The ensemble has also released four albums on Virgin Classics, now Erato/Warner Classics, with soloists Vivica Genaux, Truls Mork, and Alexandre Tharaud, respectively. It has also made recordings with Marie-Nicole Lemieux (Naïve), Marc-André Hamelin (Hyperion), Valérie Milot (Analekta), Anthony Roth Costanzo (Decca Gold), Charles Richard-Hamelin (Analekta), and with Diane Dufresne.

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