The vocal ensemble Les Rugissants, directed by Xavier Brossard-Ménard, put on a fine hour of rich choral singing this Saturday afternoon at Tremblant 2024’s Fête de la Musique. A dozen top-class singers, accompanied by a guitarist and a flamenco dancer, all led by Brossard-Ménard’s energetic, communicative direction, transported the audience in Tremblant’s main square into a Hispanic vocal universe far removed from facile clichés. Whether using Spanish or foreign composers, but inhabited by the magic of this country, the artists did not hesitate to offer works of a level of ‘seriousness’ and harmonic demands somewhat more advanced than in the other classical shows on the bill. This approach is to be applauded. That said, you’d have to be in very bad faith to balk. The programme put together by Brossard-Ménard was well chosen in terms of its expression of colours easily identifiable with the Iberian peninsula, despite some tonally modern passages. It was a performance of the highest quality, underpinned by a refinement that testifies to fine artistic integrity.
Choral Music
