Sylvain Bergeron has always been fascinated by the historical context of the things around him. His childhood ambition of becoming an archeologist was eventually replaced by his interest in music, which like most teenage boys, started with the guitar. He listened to British bands like Jethro Tull, Gentle Giant, and Genesis, learning entire albums such as Thick as a Brick and Fox Trot by heart.
Bergeron still remembers the precise day he decided to switch from guitar to lute: listening to recordings in his older brother Alain’s collection, which included music by Bartok, Bach and Stravinsky, he chanced upon a recording of Troubadour music by Thomas Binkley. “This was a revelation!”, says Bergeron. “Discovering the sound of the medieval instruments, their nuances, languages, the creativity of the performers, the freedom of interpretation. Clearly, that was the «real» stuff I was looking for, and I became totally convinced this was what I wanted to do.” He soon learned to read music and began formal lessons, and eventually devoted himself completely to the lute and its family of instruments. Bergeron went on to study with Paul O’Dette and Eugène Dombois. In 1991 he co-founded the ensemble La Nef and directed many of their productions, including Perceval, The Quest for the Holy Grail, Montsegur, The Garden of Delights and Music for Joan the Mad.
Described as “a supremely refined, elegant, cerebral musician who … seems to find a spiritual home in these haunting, restrained-yet-achingly lyrical pieces” (Ottawa Citizen), Bergeron is a master of many other plucked-string instruments including theorbo, oud, and baroque guitar. He is in constant demand both as a soloist and ensemble player, and has accompanied such giants as viol player Jordi Savall in concert halls around the world including Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Paris’s Salle Gaveau and New York’s Lincoln Center. Naturally, as a lutenist he has accompanied many singers and has performed and recorded with such stars as Dame Emma Kirkby, David Daniels, Daniel Taylor, Suzie LeBlanc, Vivica Genaux, Agnès Mellon, and Charles Daniels.
Luisa Trisi
February 2008
David Jalbert: Blurring the boundaries
In an age when many young pianists are flooding the classical music scene, David Jalbert has distinguished himself as a firebrand talent whose accomplishments belie his age. Born in Rimouski, Quebec in 1977, Jalbert’s performances prompt lavish critical praise and awards, including the 2007 Virginia Parker Prize awarded by the Canada Council for the Arts. Completing his Master’s Degree at the Université de Montréal at age 21 when most of his peers were just finishing their undergrad diplomas, Jalbert won the Governor General’s Gold Medal for the best results among all the University’s graduate students.
Jalbert has never shied away from taking the path less traveled, and in 2004 chose to dedicate his first solo disc to works by contemporary composers John Corigliano and Frederic Rzewski. His second recording, released in 2006, featured the Fauré Nocturnes. The repertoire for his debut ATMA recording — Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues Opus 87— is another characteristically bold choice for a young pianist, one that sets him apart from the others.
With a full schedule of concert engagements including a solo tour of the Maritimes, recitals with his long-standing musical partner, cellist Denise Djokic, and performances with his trio Triple Forte, Jalbert spends a lot of time in airports. His tastes in literature, film and music are wide-ranging and eclectic, and he never travels without a couple of books tucked into his bag. Authors might include anyone from Dickens and Virginia Woolf to John Updike and Umberto Eco. Recent favourites are Le Roi des Aulnes (The Erl-King) by French writer Michel Tournier, known for his unconventional take on mythology and legend, and several novels by Acadian writer Antonine Maillet.
Jalbert’s tastes in music are equally wide-ranging and demonstrate a keenly open mind. While his concert programs might include music by Beethoven, Fauré, Chopin or Ligeti, his iPod is loaded with tunes by David Bowie, Bjork, Rufus Wainwright, Sonic Youth and blues masters Robert Johnson, BB King and Muddy Waters.
Avoiding pigeonholing is important to Jalbert, both as an artist and a consumer. “I am interested in the margins, and what we mean when we talk about low art and high art, pop versus classical. The boundary is not as clear as people would like to think, and it’s one I would like to investigate further.”
Luisa Trisi
January 2008
Prix OPUS
An 11 - 06 /07
Performer of the Year
LES VOIX HUMAINES
Susie Napper & Margaret Little
January 27, 2008 Opus Award speach:
«The musical complicity of these two great dames has been compared to the skill of two trapeze artists or the telepathic communion of a pair of jazz saxophonists! The year 2007 sees the completion of a long musical journey with the last volume of Sainte-Colombe's complete « Concerts a deux violes esgales ». Four volumes, eight discs, sixty seven pieces, some forty days of recording and many concerts! »
Concerts a deux violes esgales Vol. IV
ACD2 2378
Christopher Jackson’s Pioneering Spirit
Organist, harpsichordist, conductor, artistic director, teacher, mentor, renaissance man …. Christopher Jackson’s accomplishments are so numerous that it is difficult to choose a single word to describe him and the impact of his work.
A pioneer of Montreal’s fertile early music scene, Jackson was among the first to present period music to audiences in the early 1970s. He founded the world-renowned Studio de Musique Ancienne de Montréal (SMAM) in 1974 and obviously hit a nerve with music lovers in that city: one of his first concerts attracted more than 400 people, an astonishing feat considering the Canadian period music movement was in its infancy at that time. His reputation extends well beyond national borders — Jackson has been invited to conduct several prestigious ensembles in France, Belgium and Spain, and led a tour of Monteverdi’s Orfeo across France in 1998.
A leader in the academic world, Jackson was appointed Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts at Concordia University in 1994, a post he retired in 2005. He was also granted an honorary doctorate by Laurentian University in 1999 in recognition of his contribution to the world of music. Ever the pioneer, Jackson was one of the key minds behind an unprecedented partnership between Concordia’s Engineering and Fine Arts Departments. The result is the state-of-the-art Integrated Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Complex, which opened in downtown Montreal in 2005.
His most recent, and possibly most challenging incarnation at Concordia is as Director of the Grey Nuns Project, a long-term initiative that will transform a heritage building — the Mother House of the Grey Nuns Order— into a gathering place for Concordia’s artistic community. When completed, the project will be the first totally integrated arts school in North America.
For all his entrepreneurial initiative in the academic world, Jackson never strays far from his musical career, and continues to create unique and beautiful concert programs and recordings with SMAM. Their latest CD for ATMA, Roma Triumphans [ACD2 2507], brings to life the glory of Rome’s polychoral tradition at the height of the Renaissance. Jackson’s role as ancient music detective is one that he has inhabited for years, searching libraries and working with music historians and musicologists to revive previously unknown or unedited works.
Pianist Janina Fialkowska’s graciousness and serene composure belie the hectic pace of an internationally acclaimed concert and recording artist. This season alone she performs recitals in Rome, Toronto and London as well as orchestral appearances throughout North America, Europe and Japan. However, the day after her Music Toronto recital last month, just moments before stepping in to a studio at Classical 96.3 FM for a live radio interview, she seemed more concerned that her guests were comfortably seated in the lobby. Her warmth is contagious: Within the first two minutes of her interview, listeners began calling in to the station requesting information about Fialkowska’s recordings, the newest of which features her with the Chamber Players of Canada performing Mozart’s piano concertos K. 413 – 414 in arrangements for piano and string quintet (ATMA SACD2 2531).
A one-time protégé of Arthur Rubinstein, Janina Fialkowska’s artistry is all the more astonishing considering her return to the concert stage following the removal of an aggressive tumour in her left arm. Following surgery, rigorous rehabilitation, and 18 months of performing only single-handed repertoire, she resumed her two-handed career with a highly successful and emotional recital in Germany in 2004. Characteristically, throughout her ordeal Fialkowska focused on the positive, as she explained in a 2006 interview with the London Telegraph: "It took six months of building up muscle memory to really play," she says. "I had to order my hand down the keyboard and lean my body much farther to the left. I had to relearn pieces I've been playing since I was 10 or 11, cut down my practice time from six hours a day to three and concentrate on fewer pieces instead of accepting everything. It all had a very salutary effect. It brought a completely fresh approach to my performance."
Fialkowska also used her recovery time to re-establish Piano Plus, a project initiated in 1994 as Encore Six which brings artists to Canadian rural communities and introduces school children and adults to classical music. Her remarkable efforts on this project, together with her moving and poetic interpretations of 19th and 20th century repertoire were recognized earlier this month when she was awarded the Ontario Arts Council’s Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Keyboard Artistry – the first time since 1998 that the $10,000 prize has been awarded to a pianist.
Though Fialkowska’s journey has made her more philosophical about her life on the concert stage and in the recording studio, she still gets butterflies in her stomach before performances: “I do get nervous, the same as ever. The difference is that I am more grateful now."
As far as La Rota is concerned, gone are the days when period music ensembles had to dress up in tights to be historically convincing. This band of four twenty-somethings — Sarah Barnes, Émilie Brûlé, Tobie Miller and Esteban La Rotta — has an up-to-the-minute approach to medieval music, including a blog and profile on My Space, a slick website, and moody black and white photos on their debut ATMA recording, Heu Fortuna.
La Rota was also featured in Early Music America and won that organization’s Medieval/Renaissance Competition for North American artists in 2006, just four years after the ensemble’s founding.
Balancing La Rota’s public awareness-savvy is a rigorous academic background, with three of the four members of the group pursuing or having obtained post-graduate degrees abroad. The ensemble’s Tobie Miller (recorder, hurdy-gurdy and soprano) explains, “Our image is who we are: young, dynamic and very much living in the present day. We don't dress up in costumes or try to recreate an ‘image’ of the past. But this doesn't mean that our approach is not academically founded! We strive to create balanced programmes that are well-researched, working from facsimiles and incorporating the most recent knowledge of historical performance, while at the same time very audience-friendly and accessible.”
Miller is confident that medieval music has an audience beyond the period music enthusiast. Indeed, Heu Fortuna features a wide range of music including gorgeous courtly love songs, lively dances, and socio-political satire in the form of a 14th century motet. Says Mille, “Taken broadly, medieval music seems to have a sort of universal appeal. Many people hear the words "medieval music" and think immediately of Gregorian chant, so they are often surprised to discover how rich and varied the medieval repertoire actually is.” In her recent interview with Early Music America, soprano Sarah Barnes concurred: “A lot of our concerts are not for early music crowds, but more for the general public, who don’t know all the history but may say, ‘Hey, I like how that sounds; it has a nice groove.’”
With a new recording that is already critically acclaimed, concerts scheduled in the U.S. and Canada for the coming season, and an optimistic outlook, La Rota is positively basking in Fortune’s favour.
Luisa Trisi
Copyright 2004-2006 Atma Classique. All rights reserved.
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with the last volume of Sainte-Colombe's complete « Concerts a deux violes esgales ». Four volumes, eight discs, sixty seven pieces, some forty days of recording and many concerts! »
Organist, harpsichordist, conductor, artistic director, teacher, mentor, renaissance man …. Christopher Jackson’s accomplishments are so numerous that it is difficult to choose a single word to describe him and the impact of his work. 
Pianist Janina Fialkowska’s graciousness and serene composure belie the hectic pace of an internationally acclaimed concert and recording artist. This season alone she performs recitals in Rome, Toronto and London as well as orchestral appearances throughout North America, Europe and Japan. However, the day after her Music Toronto recital last month, just moments before stepping in to a studio at Classical 96.3 FM for a live radio interview, she seemed more concerned that her guests were comfortably seated in the lobby. Her warmth is contagious: Within the first two minutes of her interview, listeners began calling in to the station requesting information about Fialkowska’s recordings, the newest of which features her with the Chamber Players of Canada performing Mozart’s piano concertos K. 413 – 414 in arrangements for piano and string quintet (ATMA SACD2 2531). 