Montréal

Hip Hop

Cam’ron

by Alain Brunet

Harlem MC Cameron Ezike Giles, now 44, enjoyed some fame in the 1990s and 2000s; rapper Cam’ron (his stage name) was one of the hopes of the Roc-A-Fella label, and then… he stopped releasing albums between 2009 and 2019. Perceived as a veteran who’s been around a lot of hip hop’s big names, the rapper is now trying to relaunch his career with the still-fresh Purple Haze 2 – his first album with the same title dates back to 2004. What will it be like on stage… a decade later?

FIND OUT MORE

Contemporary Jazz / Jazz

Mark Godfrey

by Alain Brunet

Co-leader of the Pram Trio, Ontario double bassist Mark Godfrey has been named 2019 Emerging Jazz Artist of the Year by the Toronto Arts Foundation. What’s more, this month he’s releasing Square Peg, his second album as leader of an acoustic band with a timeless jazz style. He has also been heard alongside Kellylee Evans, Barbra Lica and Jake Koffman. While in Montreal, he’ll be performing with collaborators on his new recording, which follows the album Prologue, released in 2018.

MUSICIANS:
Mark Godfrey: double bass
Allison Au: alto sax
Matt Woroshyl: tenor saxophone
Chris Pruden: piano
Eric West: drums

FIND OUT MORE

Africa / Afro-Electro / Afropop / Malian Traditional

Djely Tapa

by Alain Brunet

Hailing from the Malian griot caste, raised in the Kayes region in the western part of the country (near the Senegalese border), and a Montrealer by choice, the singer Sountougoumba Diarra firmly respects her African heritage while showing a strong desire to update it, and thus she becomes Djely Tapa. Caleb Rimtobaye (Afrotronix, H’Sao) helped her in this process, resulting in the beautiful album Barokan, released in January 2019. Here is Djely Tapa perfectly equipped to represent the immense culture of Africa 2.0. Malian and Sahelian traditions blend into the vast electronic universe, but it’s all still part of the West African movement. Within the Montreal musical community, she is THE African singer of the moment.

FIND OUT MORE

Hip Hop / Neo-Psychedelia / Pop / Singer-Songwriter / soul-pop / Trap

Yseult

by Alain Brunet

In the middle of the previous decade, the young singer Yseult earned the praise of French pop fans, then withdrew from the scene until her resurgence in 2019, notably with the hit “Rien à prouver”. “Classic” French chanson, indie pop, psych-rock, hip hop, trap and other musical colours wrap around an eloquent voice and a character both atypical and magnificent. Without a doubt, Yseult is a powerful singer, but her distinctive taste and aesthetic curiosity make her a singular thing in pop.  This visit to the Centre Phi is just an appetizer before her imminent ascent in French-speaking North America.

FIND OUT MORE

Experimental / Contemporary / Jazz / Modern Jazz

Liberté Big Band

by Alain Brunet

Liberté Anne Lymberiou a grandi à Montréal et y a étudié la musique avant de parfaire sa formation au City College of New York. Elle vivait dans la Grosse Pomme depuis cinq ans lorsqu’elle fut contrainte par le service d’immigration des É-U. à rentrer au Canada. Depuis ce retour forcé, elle met de l’avant son ensemble de 17 musiciens, projet amorcé chez les voisins du Sud. Très influencée par les orchestres paroxystiques de Charles Mingus, Lymberiou dirige le Liberté Big Band dans un esprit comparable : thèmes relativement simples, énormément d’espace pour les improvisations, son collectif volontairement sale, groove à revendre, jazz moderne et contemporain. Évolution en direct devant public !

PLUS D’INFORMATIONS

Classical / Contemporary / Modern Classical

Société de concerts de Montréal Choir

by Alexandre Villemaire

For their major lyrical production of the year, the students of the Conservatoire de musique turn into princes, princesses, godmothers and stepmothers in this adaptation by Jules Massenet of Charles Perreault’s tale. Up there with Werther and Manon among the composer’s greatest successes, Cendrillon seduces with its lyricism, its emblematic tunes (“Que mes soeurs sont heureuses”, “Ah! douce enfant”, and “Enfin, je suis ici”), its sparkling colours and its streak of humour treated with delicacy and elegance in music by the composer. This musical fairy tale is presented three evenings with two distinct casts. (Alexandre Villemaire)

ARTISTS AND PROGRAM:

Chœur de chambre de la Société de concerts de Montréal 

Pascal Germain-Berardi, director

Denis Gougeon: La chanson des gitans 

Louis Desjarlais: Le Bestiaire 

Hugo Levasseur-Déziel: À l’aube d’un régime post-littéraire 

Pierre Grandmaison: Ave Maria 

Marcel Laurencelle: Kyrie, from Messe pour les Dimanches de l’Avent et du Carême

Ana Sokolović: ASAP 4 SATB 

Jean-Christophe Arsenault: T’en souviens-tu Godin 

Lionel Daunais: Le Pont Mirabeau 

Claude Vivier: O! Kosmos! 

Pascal Germain-Berardi: Les arts univers

MORE INFORMATIONS


Eastern European / Romani Music

Alexandru Sura: ” Paganini cymbalumesque “

by Rupert Bottenberg

Moldovan-born Montrealer Alexandru Sura is an acknowledged master of the cimbalom, that trapezoidal chordophone commonly applied in Eastern European traditional music. Sura summons up the tantalizing timbres of this underappreciated instrument when he joins the Rondo Capriccioso de Saint-Saëns orchestra for a program of Paganini’s revered “Campanella”, the third movement of his Violin Concerto No. 2, as well as some Romanian folk-music delights.

FIND OUT MORE

Baroque / Classical

Les Violons du Roy and Bach cantatas

by François Vallières

For this concert, part of the series organized by Arte Musica of the complete cantatas by Johann Sebastian Bach, Les Violons du Roy present three of them. Under the direction of Jonathan Cohen, the Québec ensemble will open the evening with Sehet wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem, BWV 159 (See, we go up to Jerusalem), written for the last Sunday before Lent. The group will then play Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, BWV 2 (O God of heaven, look down here below), written for the second Sunday following the feast of the Holy Trinity. The third cantata, Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiss, BWV 134 (A heart that knows that its Jesus is alive) was written for Easter Tuesday. The soloists for this concert will be countertenor Alex Potter, tenor Nick Pritchard and baritone Tyler Duncan. Please note that a rehearsal is scheduled 45 minutes before the concert to allow the audience to practice singing the final chorale of one of the cantatas. 

ARTISTS AND PROGRAM:

Les Violons du Roy 

Jonathan Cohen: conductor

Alex Potter: countertenor

Nick Pritchard: tenor

Tyler Duncan: baritone

J. S. Bach : Cantatas

Sehet wir gehn hinauf gen Jerusalem, BWV 159

Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein, BWV 2

Ein Herz, das seinen Jesum lebend weiß, BWV 134

MORE INFORMATIONS

Contemporary Jazz / Jazz

Olivier Babaz • Frank Lozano • Pierre Tanguay

by Alain Brunet

Double bassist, composer, improviser and orchestra leader, Olivier Babaz invites saxophonist Frank Lozano and drummer Pierre Tanguay to take on the material from Fragments, his most recent album, not to mention the fruit of his collaboration with his Montreal guests.

MUSICIANS:
Olivier Babaz : double bass, composer
Frank Lozano : saxophone
Pierre Tanguay : drums

FIND OUT MORE

Rock

White Cowbell Oklahoma • Floating Widget

by Patrick Baillargeon

Toronto’s exuberant White Cowbell Oklahoma are coming to celebrate their 20th anniversary in Montreal, a city they know well enough, having played there many times. While some assumed they’d vanished under a mountain of empty beer cans, the Ontario band has never really stopped playing wherever they’ve been in demand – in Canada, of course, but also in the Netherlands, France and Germany, where the WCO’s southern (northern) rock seems to be particularly popular. The sextet, known for their guitar excesses, offbeat humour and penchant for getting pickeld, will share the stage with local stoner combo Floating Widget.

FIND OUT MORE

Indie Pop / Pop / Rock / Singer-Songwriter

Simon Kearney

by Alain Brunet

In early 2019, Simon Kearney released the songs of Open House, which he affectionately refers to as “pop ’n’ roll“. Let’s be a little more specific and call his songs indie pop mixed with rock, blues, funk, groove and hip hop. Kearney’s lyrics are mostly autobiographical, often self-deprecating or downright absurd. Zero headache, pop entertainment with a rock attitude, a certain lucidity… and that’s all for now.

FIND OUT MORE

Subscribe to our newsletter

Inscription
Infolettre

"*" indicates required fields

Type of Suscribers