by Eric St-Pierre
Montreal International Jazz Festival (photo: gonzai.com)
Montrealers have always had great influence in the music industry, both locally and on the international scene.
From 1929 to 1950, the New York Metropolitan Opera’s primary conductor of French repertoire was Wilfrid Pelletier, founding conductor of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal. Pelletier also founded the Conservatoire de Musique et d’Art Dramatique du Québec, where many successful musicians have been trained, including Joseph Masella, principal horn in the OSM from 1943 to 1969. Fun fact: for a while, Joseph and seven of his brothers—Raphael (clarinet), Pietro (oboe), Rodolfo (bassoon), Alfred and Mario (violin), and Paul and Giulio (horn)—were all playing in the OSM at the same time!
Montréal has always been one of the hottest jazz cities in North America. During the US Prohibition of the 1920s and ’30s, Montréal was one of the few places where you could still legally buy alcohol...which made our nightclubs and cabarets flourish. Montréal’s reputation was so infamous that it was nicknamed "Sin City!" This environment helped create famous Montréal-born jazz artists like Oscar Peterson, Maynard Ferguson, and Oliver Jones. Nowadays, Montréal's International Jazz Festival is the biggest annual jazz event in the world, taking place each year in June, with over 500 indoor and outdoor shows.
1969 provided a notorious moment in Montréal’s musical history: it was during that spring that John Lennon and Yoko Ono held their famous “bed-in” protest against the Vietnam war. This is where they recorded the song Give Peace a Chance live from their bed at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel. You can still rent the mythical room, but you will have to spend a few thousand dollars a night (and even in Canadian dollars, that’s a lot)!
Over the last few years, many musicians and performers from Montréal have loomed large on the international scene. Celine Dion, for example, was born and raised in the suburbs of Montréal, but other famous artists are linked to our city: singer-songwriters Leonard Cohen, Rufus and Martha Wainwright, and Elisapie; concert pianists Marc-André and Charles-Richard Hamelin; members of the rock bands Simple Plan and Arcade Fire; and conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, to name a few. This diversity has made Montréal a rich and fertile environment for musicians in many genres.
Speaking of maestro Nézet-Séguin, we are happy to announce that he will be conducting a concert as part of IHS 55 in partnership with the Festival de Lanaudière and the Orchestre Métropolitain. This concert will feature IHS 55 artists Sarah Willis, Stefan Dohr, Yun Zeng, and host Louis-Philippe Marsolais performing Schumann’s Konzertstück as well as Strauss’ Alpine Symphony.
Maestro Yannick Nézet-Séguin (photo credit: © Orchestre Métropolitain)
A lawn-section ticket for this concert is included with your full registration to IHS 55 (with upgrades possible on demand, according to availability). Register now for IHS 55 at www.ihs55.org. More information on the concert is available at Strauss au sommet – Festival de Lanaudière (lanaudiere.org)
