WHO: Le Vent du Nord
WHAT: concert, Quebecois
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 19
WHERE: Franco-American Heritage Center, Cedar Street, Lewiston
tickets: $20; $17 for students and seniors; call L/A Arts at 1-800-639-2919 or 782-7228 or go online to www.laarts.org
Rooted in tradition
Le Vent du Nord musicians share stories of French families
The Quebecois band will perform Jan. 19, courtesy of L/A Arts.
The newly renovated Franco-American Heritage Center in Lewiston seems the perfect setting for Le Vent du Nord, a traditional Quebecois band that has won several awards since forming in 2002.
“What a natural fit,” said Andrew Harris, executive director of L/A Arts, which is bringing the group to Lewiston Jan. 19. “This is a great match for the community.”
Le Vent du Nord (North Wind) evokes a past life of French settlers and musical traditions that features such arcane instruments as the hurdy gurdy and bones.
The song “Marguerite” on the band’s second album, “Les amants du Saint-Laurent,” is a toe-tapping version of lyrics that date back to 16th century France.
The band’s four musicians bring to the song a tight harmony and contra-dance style unique to Acadian culture.
The group won the 2004 JUNO Award (Canada’s music awards) for Roots and Traditional Album of the Year with its first release “Maudite moisson.”
Last month, Le Vent du Nord won the award for Best Traditional Album for its second and latest release “Les amants du Saint-Laurent” at the Canadian Folk Music Awards.
All four band members come from traditional musical backgrounds, with many of their songs dug up from Nicolas Boulerice’s own family tree and others inspired by their respective childhoods.
Boulerice, a jazz pianist and flutist by training, studied the hurdy gurdy in Ireland and France and has since become proficient playing and making the instrument. In French, the instrument is called a vielle a roué or wheel fiddle. The twang and whine of it blends in with the percussive background of many of the band’s dance tunes.
Fellow band member Olivier Demers brings a more classical and lyrical sound to the quartet. Trained as a violinist and guitarist, Demers and Boulerice teamed up as a duet in 2001, which was Le Vent Du Nord in the making.
Demer’s soft touch can be heard particularly in “Du haut du balcon,” a song he dedicated to his father on their second album.
Perhaps the most energetic and steeped in the Quebecois tradition is Benoit Bourque, who has been playing dance music for nearly 20 years.
The accordion, bones and spoons, guitar, recorder, mandolin and vocals comprise Bourque’s inventory of musical talents.
Prominent in the band’s reels and quadrilles, Bourque managed to slow down the tempo in “La Valse a huit ans,” a waltz dedicated to his mother of eight children and to all mothers of large families.
The newest member of the band is Simon Beaudry, who also has a rich musical family repertoire. Beaudry started playing guitar and singing at age 12, while his grandfather at 78 years old still sings at family gatherings.
Beaudry’s entire family either sings or plays traditional music that demands deftness with accordion and fiddle.
The group’s music stays true to the folk traditions of telling stories – stories of young lovers as in the title track “Les aimants du Saint-Laurent,” of a man in love with his bottle in “Le bon buveur” and even of mundane topics that take a bawdy twist as in “La semaine du paysan.” The musicians also insert their individual styles as they compose and recompose an art form that has evolved through countless generations.
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