Fête de la musique de Tremblant 2024 | Marianne Trudel and Karen Young: Excellence comes in two

Disaster averted. Five minutes before Marianne Trudel and Karen Young were due to perform on the main stage of the Fête de la Musique de Tremblant, a deluge broke out. You could see the large audience fleeing on all fours. The two artists were quickly moved to the small public piano tent. The brave souls who made it there were rewarded with two things: comfortable shelter and an hour of top-class singing and jazz piano. The theme of several of the songs chosen by the two artists was… water. You can’t make that up. Karen Young, with a professional career spanning some fifty years (I don’t want to reveal her age, let’s be delicate. Anyway, you’ll find the info on Wikipedia….), is still one of the most exceptional voices to have emerged from Canada. Through a repertoire of finely transformed tunes by Monk, Strayhorn, Gilles Vigneault, Joni Mitchell, Abbey Lincoln, Richard Desjardins and others, she has captivated audiences with her expressive, ethereal singing. Marianne Trudel, a masterful pianist, also stood out thanks to her performances, which were perfectly symbiotic with her partner’s refined spirit. A lesson in high art performed in imperfect circumstances.