Daniel Lavoie and I Musici de Montréal, Laurentian Highlands Festival of Classical Music, August 14, 2010.

Once upon a time (in August 2010 to be exact) the village of Ferme-Neuve in the Laurentian Highlands region of Quebec hosted an exclusive concert that brought together Daniel Lavoie and I Musici de Montréal.

How would a classical chamber music ensemble and a popular singer make harmony on stage – was a question that intrigued me so much it landed me 500 miles from home, in a church in the middle of that village lost in the Canadian mountains. And it turned out to be just the place for me. The charm of the Festival Classique Hautes-Laurentides (now Festival International Hautes-Laurentides) lays in the fact that its audiences listen to classical (and not only) music in close proximity to all those majestic mountains, lakes and forests. And in some very natural way the landscapes that tune one's mind to things eternal also are very conducive to appreciation of music. (Or is it the contrast that makes the whole experience work so well? I can't decide...)

The program included 3 instrumental pieces, 12 songs  and several poems read between the songs. The instrumental pieces were lovely "summery" classical works selected by Lavoie himself. According to the overall very confused program notes, we heard Dvorak’s Serenade opus 22 (Finale, although I think it might have been Larghetto) and Borodin’s Quartet no 2 (Scherzo - I am more than sure it was actually Allegro moderato) at the beginning of the first part of the concert and Debussy’s Quartet opus 10 (1st movement) opening the second part. Beautiful, beautiful sounds...

But the raison d'être for all this was of course that singer. Once the scherzo (i. e. allegro) was over, Lavoie, in some perky sparkling blazer, looking half-a benevolent alien in love with our civilization and half-your favorite mischievous uncle, entered the stage and the party began, because any time Daniel Lavoie enters the stage (no matter what size) he brings with him a party. Without fail. A party on what occasion? Who cares, it's a party feeling without a cause, that Daniel Lavoie feeling...

Very soon we discovered that the songs had received brilliant string arrangements, gentle and imaginative at the same time, and as a result they suddenly "popped up" and shined brighter than ever, like that nice friend of yours transformed by her seductive evening dress. I loved them all, but Sauvez, Je voudrais voir New York and Boule qui roule particularly stood out to me. (Sorry I don't know the name of the conductor who I believe also wrote the arrangements).

As for Lavoie's voice, that evening in that church it did to his audience exactly what the French would describe as "it came to get us". Indeed it came to get us in the deepest corners of our souls, in the corners we didn't know existed. And so there he was, that Daniel Lavoie, happily reigning over all those souls he got, one with his piano, deeply in love with that orchestra and each sound produced by each of its instruments, sending the endless rays of his sunshine to the musicians. Not to mention all the rays of sunshine sent to the audience! Oh yes, that party was going full blast... 

It all ended much too quickly, like some dreams do. We were back in Ferme-Neuve, the giant night moths were out and the sun had set somewhere beyond the river with the cute name Lievre ("hare")... Life was good.

As far as I know this concert was given only one more time at another location a few months later. And so what is left of a terrific show seven years after its last curtain call? A distant memory of an acute happiness and a few faded videos, which do as much justice to their subject as an image of a solar eclipse seen through a pinhole screen does to the sun. And yet, it is an image of the sun, however small it is. And so here it goes. 

La voilà notre Armée

Docteur Tendresse

Le roi (a poem)

Chanson de la Terre

Sauvez

Je voudrais voir New York

Ils s'aiment

Boule qui roule

© All photos and videos by Paroles