A 39th season under the theme: Amazing Journeys! 🎶

A 39th SEASON UNDER THE THEME: AMAZING JOURNEYS!
— Présented by Le Groupe Maurice

Dear public,

We enjoy travelling by foot, by car, by plane, in our imagination, and even in our dreams. Travelling is the stuff of dreams; it enhances our experiences and perspectives. Globetrotting been extremely difficult, nay impossible, for the past two years. Now we’re really eager to travel! I Musici de Montréal will take you across Europe in music and imagination during the 2022–2023 season. Visit the British Isles, France, Germany, Austria, and Italy with our prestigious guests soprano Karina Gauvin, conductor Tania Miller, cellist Stéphane Tétreault, harpist Valérie Milot, recorder player Vincent Lauzer, flutist Ariane Brisson, violist and conductor Maxim Rysanov, and our solo violinist Julie Triquet, of course.

Explore First Nations lands and dreams with a carte blanche evening hosted by Caroline Monnet and her surprise guests. André Robitaille will narrate old tales while Max Pollak, a Broadway star, will dance to them. All throughout the season, composers that have become the staple of I Musici’s repertoire, such as Bach, Vivaldi, Boccherini, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, Debussy, Ravel, Britten, and Shostakovich, will be presented alongside lesser-known composers including Boieldieu, Walton, Elgar, Holst, Pärt, Arnold, and Telemann as well as present-day composers such as Ichmouratov, Torres, Chacon, and Devaux. The 2022–2023 season will be capped off with a benefit concert featuring the great pianist Louis Lortie. He will present the same Mozart concertos that appeared on his first album under the Chandos label—they were recorded with I Musici de Montréal, too. Since then, Louis has released over 50 albums with Chandos.

With approximately one concert per month at Salle Pierre-Mercure, this is a rendezvous not to be missed! Meet with the sublime beauty of music and with the electrifying passion that inhabits our 15 musicians. Come discover why I Musici is the best chamber orchestra in Montreal, and certainly one of the best in the country!

Jean-François Rivest
Artistic Advisor and Conductor
I Musici de Montréal

DISCOVER OUR PROGRAMMING

2022-2023 SEASON

BRITANNIA:
Karina Gauvin and the Illuminations
— September 29, 2022,
7:30 p.m. (also available as a webcast)

Karina Gauvin, soprano
Jean-François Rivest, conductor

Our journey will begin in the British Isles, a group of islands with so many myths and legends. The British Isles have always captured our imagination with stories of the Knights of the Round Table, Loch Ness, Robin Hood, and dragons and druids. We will discover these stories once again through magical works by Britten, Walton, Holst, and Elgar. In our rendition, the High Priestess is unquestionably the wonderful soprano Karina Gauvin. Her creativity will shine through Britten’s sublime Illuminations.

TICKETS

FIRST NATIONS: Caroline Monnet's Selection
— October 220, 2022,
7 p.m. followed by a VIP cocktail

A portion of the funds collected will go to the Kiuna Institution.

Caroline Monnet, visual artist and filmmaker
Julie Triquet, violin
Raven Chacon, composer
Jean-François Rivest, conductor

Caroline Monnet is an extremely sought-after visual artist and a renowned filmmaker with a sensitive and warm personality as well as a vibrant imagination. Influenced by a convergence of French and Anishinaabe backgrounds, Caroline truly embodies the humanity of modern culture. We have given her the opportunity to select works for this concert; through her musical selections and excerpts from her own movies, she will paint a captivating sonic and poetic landscape highly steeped in nature and seasons, two aspects that are part of Indigenous traditions. Throughout the evening, guided by Caroline Monnet, you will hear works by Britten, Brahms, Shostakovich, Walker, Pärt, and Ligeti. You will also delight in a premiere by Navajo composer Raven Chacon. Raven won the 2022 Pulitzer Prize, making him the first Indigenous winner of this prestigious award.

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PARIS: Valérie Milot and her harp
— November 17, 2022, 7:30 p.m.

Valérie Milot, harp
Tania Miller, guest conductor

Paris has long delighted everyone with its beautiful architecture, its top-notch food, and its buzzing night life. The wonderful harpist Valérie Milot and renowned Canadian conductor Tania Miller will share Paris’s musical splendour and sensitivity with us in a program combining the Impressionism of Debussy and Ravel with the Romanticism of Boieldieu. Without a doubt, the harp is best suited to unveil the entire colour palette of these magical works. You’ll have an opportunity to rediscover violinists Amélie Benoit-Bastien and Hubert Brizard in the second half of the concert—two professional musicians you’re familiar with by now. Both violinists are I Musici de Montréal members who will play in Arvo Pärt’s extremely trippy and meditative Tabula Rasa.

TICKETS

IN DREAMLAND: André Robitaille and Max Pollak
— December 8, 2022, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.

Max Pollak, percussive dancer and tap dancer
André Robitaille, narrator
Mélissa Lavergne, congas
Jean-François Rivest, conductor

You must take a plane or boat to visit London and Paris, but all you need to do is close your eyes to dive into dreamland. Each of us has a hidden reservoir of dreams, a vast land of imagination that enhances our reality with its dream-like power. The concert will begin with the venerable Shostakovich’s fantasies and hallucinations. At the time of writing his final quartet, Shostakovich was sick and lying in a hospital bed. Like a nightmare, Shostakovich’s deeply philosophical masterpiece, Quartet No. 15, will instill in you a deep terror and immense admiration for its timeless beauty. In vivid contrast to the dark first half of the concert, Max Pollak’s tremendous artistry will share the joy of music with his entire body. He will be dancing in Torres’s Lucid Dreams, featuring upbeat and passionate Latin-American rhythms, and in Ichmouratov’s Shabarsha, a fairy tale from peasant Old Russia. The exuberant André Robitaille will enthusiastically guide us throughout the evening’s poetic journey from darkness to light and joy.

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GERMANY: The Essence of I Musici
— February 2, 2023, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. (also available as a webcast)

I Musici solo quartet
Jean-François Rivest, conductor

This program is sure to leave you spellbound! We have amplified Brahms’s famous String Sextet in E-flat major for the entire string orchestra, dividing the orchestra into six sections with an additional double bass—as Mahler did in his arrangement of Schubert’s Death and the Maiden quartet and Schoenberg in Transfigured Night. Beethoven’s legendary Fifth Symphony was reduced to strings, whereas the front row quartet has taken on the place and role of the wind instruments. This concert embodies passion, lyricism, spirit, and energy—the founding I Musici de Montréal characteristics that will literally be amplified and multiplied through these new arrangements.

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AUSTRIA: Maxim Rysanov and Mozart
— March 9, 2023, 7:30 p.m.

Maxim Rysanov, viola and guest conductor
Julie Triquet, violin

Without a doubt, you would say “Mozart!” if I said “Austria.” Mozart will be front and centre in this approachable concert. This performance will mark the expected return of the magnificent, worldrenowned violist Maxim Rysanov who is a valued conductor among I Musici musicians and audience members alike. Mozart’s stunning Twenty-ninth Symphony in A major will supplement the poignant Sinfonia Concertante, an original double concerto for violin and viola in which our admirable violin soloist Julie Triquet will join Rysanov. Because Rysanov hails from Ukraine, it is only fitting for him to conduct Malcolm Arnold’s Variations on a Ukrainian Folksong as an addition to the concert. Arnold was a composer known for his film music, earning him an Oscar in 1957.

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SYRINX Joins the Flute Festivities
— April 13, 2023, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. (also available as a webcast)

Vincent Lauzer, recorder
aroline Tremblay, recorder
Ariane Brisson, flute
Julie Triquet, violin
Jean-François Rivest, conductor

The syrinx is the vital organ that enables birds to sing and serenade us with their amazing melodies. It was also the name of a nymph in Greek mythology who was chased by Pan and helped by the river. She became the reed with which Pan made his famous flute. Join us for a great flute festivity featuring solo recorders, recorder duets, recorders with orchestra, solo flutes, flutes with orchestra, and flute and recorder duets. The greatest composers will highlight each festive iteration, whether through Vivaldi’s and Telemann’s stunning virtuosity, Debussy’s intoxicating smoothness, or Bach’s emotive and timeless intensity.

TICKETS

ITALY: Stéphane Tétreault and Boccherini
— May 11, 2023, 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. (also available as a webcast)

Stéphane Tétreault, cello (I Musici artist in residence)
Jean-François Rivest, conductor

Here’s yet another chapter in Yuli’s Heritage, a project we started last year. Our artist in residence, the splendid cellist Stéphane Tétreault, will present Boccherini’s sensual Concerto in B-flat major. Stéphane will join our cello section after his solo performance to play my transcription of one of Beethoven’s key quartets, the majestic Quartet Op. 127, written at the same time as the Ninth Symphony. To start the concert, we will all take in a new commissioned work of which we reserve you the surprise.

TICKETS