Additional Information
In November, festivals in Quebec’s regions are few and far between, but the Val d’Or Traditional Music Festival is a standout destination. From November 5th to 9th, the Abitibi city pulsates with traditional music, with programs presented from morning till night, right up until Sunday morning. The festival invites us to “come to the living room,” a theme reminiscent of traditional gatherings in the living rooms of good people across the country. The Beaudry brothers, Éric and Simon, Leahy, La Famille LeBlanc, Skye Consort, and many others perform in the heart of the Abitibi autumn. This is an excellent opportunity to highlight this traditional music event, which has been successfully established in the region since November 2018. To summarize the Val d’Or Traditional Music Festival’s history, its organizing committee was contacted on the eve of the event.
PAN M 360: Karine Roberge, you are the president of the Val-d’Or Traditional Music Festival.
Karine Roberge : Exactly!
PAN M 360 : Please tell us how this festival emerged in Val d’Or.
Karine Roberge: This is our eighth edition; the first was in 2018. But it started before that, with a group of local musicians organizing dance evenings. We invited caller Jean-François Berthiaume to participate in our evenings. When he saw what we had, he said, “You have a festival on your hands!” It was gaining popularity; the community was truly delighted with what we were doing. We also had the support of the city; we even won an award for our work with the dance evenings.
PAN M 360: Indeed, a Val d’Or cultural prize was won by the Racine Carrée group, which preceded the first presentation of your Val d’Or Trad Music Festival.
Karine Roberge: We did this for three years, from 2015 to 2018. We did it on weekends, we organized workshops, we could bring in a musician who would bring us repertoire that he would teach us. Little by little, we launched the first edition in 2018, and the audience continues to grow with each festival.
PAN M 360: You are a musician yourself, aren’t you?
Karine Roberge : Yes, I play the violin.
PAN M 360 : The Val d’Or Traditional Music Festival was born in 2018, tell us about its progress!
Karine Roberge : Initially, it was Friday and Saturday; I even wonder if we didn’t include Sunday the first year. Then we added Thursday, then Wednesday.
PAN M 360 : An increasingly large task to accomplish!
Karine Roberge : It starts on Wednesday (November 5th). We usually have a show followed by a call-and-response singing activity. On Thursdays and Fridays, we always have happy hours (5 to 7 pm), and on Thursdays and Fridays, we have bands performing. After that, we have two bands performing each Thursday and Friday evening. We even have a late-night show, which is new this year. After that, on Saturday night, it’s our big dance party. For us, it’s Saturday night. People look forward to the famous dance party with the caller.
PAN M 360 : Is it the original local band playing?
Karine Roberge : The first few years, yes, but as we are quite busy with the festival, we have been inviting groups to play for the last 2 or 3 years.
PAN M 360 : It’s pretty intense for 5 days!
Karine Roberge : We also always have a group at the reception desk from 7:00 to 7:30 p.m. So we present four groups a day, or almost. On Saturdays, we also run lots of workshops. In the mornings, we also present shows. Before, we organized informal gatherings with musicians, but now we have shows at three different venues in Val-d’Or.
On Friday at lunchtime, we also have five groups playing in five different restaurants around town. We’re really spreading out everywhere, we’re infiltrating the city!
PAN M 360 : You present music in all sorts of places that aren’t necessarily concert halls, which is really cool!
Karine Roberge : Yes! Furthermore, we are currently presenting four shows in seniors’ residences the week before the festival with a local band. We also always present a group in collaboration with the school board (Centre de Service scolaire de l’Or-et-des-Bois). We reach many young people, up to 400 from the school board.
PAN M 360 : And this is not the end yet!
Karine Roberge : Yes, we always finish on Sunday mornings. It’s our classical-traditional show, where we want to demonstrate that traditional music appeals to a wide range of audiences, not just those who enjoy traditional folk dances. We can also engage fans of other genres, like classical music. Sometimes people have preconceived notions about it. That’s why we present a show on Sunday mornings at the Val-d’Or Conservatory of Music. We’ve previously had Nicholas Williams, Philippe Prud’homme, and Élisabeth Giroux, who perform traditional music with a classical touch. This year, Skye Consort will be performing.
PAN M 360 : And your programming? Tell us about your selection this year.
Karine Roberge : These are groups from Quebec, Acadia, or Ontario. But starting next year, we might look a little further afield. We’ll see.
PAN M 360 : Clearly, you’re still improving! In any case, you’re still improving!
Karine Roberge : Yes! And we often work with themes. We create lots of slogans.
Equipped to keep the tradition alive… Better traditional than never… From the heart to traditional… This year, it’s all about coming to the living room. Because in traditional music, the living room was where the old-time gatherings took place, where families came together. It’s a way of saying to people: “Come celebrate with your family!” That’s kind of the theme this year.
Family is also a theme. Extended family, family in the literal sense, family in the figurative sense. We have the Leahy family, the LeBlanc family, the Beaudry brothers who are our spokespeople. Real families! Our local group, Les Fous, is an Abitibi family, so to speak. Then we have Excavation & Poésie, a chosen family, friends who have come together. The Vaudevillian, who come for the Friday happy hour, are a couple.
Traditional music is like a large, close-knit family where we come to celebrate together during a festival. We reconnect with our roots and experience our traditions together.
PAN M 360 : How do you manage to finance your event?
Karine Roberge : We have many local sponsors. Businesses here are truly very generous. We also seek grants – from CALQ, Canadian Heritage, the City of Val-d’Or, etc. Our budget is still around $200,000.
PAN M 360 : You are presenting your festival in November, which is a time of year when there are not many musical events.
Karine Roberge : Yes, we did question ourselves at one point, we wondered if we should change. From a tourism perspective, for example, we have to convince people to come to Val d’Or in November. It’s a month that’s supposedly dull and boring. Then we realized that November is also a great time for music, for celebrating.
PAN M 360 : In Abitibi, autumn arrives early, on November 5th. There’s something special, even exotic, about experiencing a taste of the cold in a musical context! Are you all from Val-d’Or, you who are organizing this Val-d’Or Trad?
Karine Roberge : Yes, that’s right. As for the organization, we’re all from Val-d’Or. We’re not that far away, we’re only 5.5 hours from Montreal! We hope people will be willing to make the trip, because we’re always well received in Abitibi, people have a great time. So yes, it’s an invitation, a great excuse to come!
