Chœur Louisbourg & Monique Richard - Tapisserie canadienne aux couleurs d'Acadie (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

A Word from Monique Richard, Artistic Director: The Choeur Louisbourg is delighted to present Tapisserie canadienne aux couleurs d’Acadie, a musical program featuring Acadian and Francophone musical and literary works from New Brunswick. This program reflects the choir’s commitment to promote contemporary music, particularly the music of the Acadian and Francophone communities from across our province. We hope these new and lesser-known choral works will become more commonplace in the repertoire of Canadian choral music.

The musical selections of styles creating different meditative, joyful, and reflective moods, have been grouped into three broad themes: hope, justice, and peace; pride in one’s heritage and commitment to creating a better world; and the universal theme of love that varies with the seasons of life. In addition, we are pleased that three of the fourteen works on this recording are new creations by Rachel Leger, Carl Philippe Gionet, and Richard Gibson. Many of these works have never been recorded. Among others, literary works by Hermenegilde Chiasson, the late Raymond Guy LeBlanc and Emma Hache have been set to music by composers Frederic Chiasson, Richard Gibson, Jean-Francois Mallet, Mathieu Lussier, and Aaron Jensen. Two new works by former choir member James Fogarty’s have been performed in Canada, including Ave Maria for eight voices, winner of the Canadian Chamber Choir Award in 2009. Compositions by Jeff Enns and Timothy Corlis, as well as arrangements of traditional pieces by Sean Dagher and Donald Patriquin complete the program.

This musical program provides a legacy for future generations of choirs in the French-speaking world and beyond, through the quest for new Canadian repertoire that includes New Brunswick’s Francophone and Acadian communities.

We hope you enjoy listening to these colourful pieces from Acadia, which enrich the beauty of Canada’s great cultural tapestry.

Word from Hermenegilde Chiasson, Acadian Poet, Multidisciplinary Artist and Producer: There is a fervor in choral singing that appeals to the community and becomes an inspiration for all those who gather so that their voice carries, so that it is heard as an echo, a reverberation, an emotion that inspires us. This is what Monique Richard has done with this recording, which is part of a tradition linked to the experience of Acadie, which, following the deportation of 1755, found itself in a state of great distress and destitution.

In this precarious situation, it was obvious that music was becoming an impossible luxury, if only to obtain instruments, let alone find a suitable venue to perform. What remained was the voice, this instrument that everyone carries with them and which can be amplified to give that presence and magnitude of which this recording is a magnificent example.

Every time I hear a choir, and the Louisbourg Choir in particular, I can't help thinking that this is a tradition once linked to religion, and that the church was the only place for public performance. By secularising itself, as is the case here, choral singing offers us a modern vision of this phenomenon. At the same time, by calling on literary texts and composers marked by modernity, the Choeur Louisbourg and its director offer us a foretaste of this desire to be part of this great musical mosaic that continues to expand and of which Acadie is undoubtedly a part.

Word from Richard Gibson, Canadian composer and former professor of Composition at the Music Department of Universite de Moncton

With the advent of this recording, the contemporary choral music of the French-speaking people of Atlantic Canada has finally been beautifully documented in all its diversity. The composers of the fourteen pieces featured on Tapisserie canadienne aux couleurs de l’Acadie have drawn inspiration primarily from three sources. The music of Acadian folklore, surely one of the more lustrous jewels of the Canadian musical fabric, permeates the recording, either subliminally or through direct quotation. Some pieces pay homage to the sacred music central to the protection of a Francophone identity in danger of assimilation. And finally, the program gives full expression to the influence of international musical modernity available only to a population secure in its sense of place in contemporary society, whilst retaining confidence in the knowledge that their “roots shall nourish their crown.” (Robertson Davies)

Special mention must be made of the meticulous care accorded to this work by choral director Monique Richard, producer Jeremy van Slyke and his team, and especially the indefatigable members of the Choeur Louisbourg. As a composer of contemporary classical music, I have rarely encountered such dedication, expressed overwhelmingly in terms of talent and musical perfectionism. It is to be hoped that this recording will enable the programming of these choral works throughout the wider musical community of Canada and beyond.

Tracklist:
01. Corlis: Missa pax: V. Benedictus
02. Fogarty: Ave Maria
03. Gionet: Pax
04. Jensen: Béatitudes
05. Lussier: Vous qui marchez
06. Gibson: Beatus vir
07. Grieg: Ave maris stella (Arr. for Choir & Piano by Donald Patriquin)
08. Mallet: L'appel
09. Chiasson: Les ventres courageux
10. Gibson: Ce soir
11. LeBlanc: Dans la baie de cocagne (Arr. for Choir by Richard Gibson)
12. Fogarty: Va, chanson, à tire-d'aile
13. Léger: Une histoire à raconter
14. Traditional: Écrivez-moi (Arr. for Choir, 2 Violins & Cello by Seán Dagher)


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