Granby will shine from August 8 to 18 as the Festival de la chanson has never shone. Proclamation duly validated. You only have to scroll the cursor on the site to feel revived. As an old regular who no longer expected much from it — more than 30 years out of the 56 years of existence of the pioneering competition, it wears out its music journalist — everything sparkles with freshness. Not just the program: the presentation of the program. Go and look it up and down, make the gesture. It’s not the general manager, Julie Mailhot, who says it, it’s bibi. The young woman is certainly delighted. On the other end of the line, she laughs. “Yes! You should have seen us, the team, when we did the strategic planning exercise in the fall. We were very, very fired up!” We really wanted to shake everything up, to showcase everything in a new way, to recall the history of the festival in the present, to have ideas, ideas, ideas!”
Right from the start, the megaphone-shaped logo sounds the rally. The words that come out of it are worth the quote, to be taken literally: “10 days of French-language music, artistic discoveries and pure pleasure await you in the heart of Granby.” Literally, it’s true. It can even be heard. It can be read out loud like a series of more than amazing slogans. A few examples among a host of others: FICG visits Bromont, FICG at the Market, FICG on the Grand’ rue, When the FICG gets up. Even before naming the artists, we want to be in the movement. To flock to Granby. “This is my second year, I feel that the wind is good. We all feel that after the pandemic, after the many changes of direction, we are relaunched. We have crossed the turbulence zone, I would say,” continues Julie Mailhot.
The founding and lasting competition
The director will not dwell on the years of ill winds, and the veteran music journalist is not too keen on discussing the pestilential decade 2007-2018 spent denouncing text after text the dictatorial stance of the then general director (finally suspended and then fired), nor on recounting in detail the difficult convalescence of a festival struck to the heart. The heart? The good old competition. “The idea, when I took up the post, was not to reinvent for the sake of reinventing, but to return to the roots. The strength of the FICG is the relevance of the competition. Locally, across Quebec, and internationally. These are the careers that have truly taken off in Granby, since the creation of the competition in 1969. We were told in last year’s surveys that the number one reason to come to Granby is to meet new artists.”
“There are a lot of festivals during the summer,” continues Julie Mailhot. “We see well-known artists. We also see them in Granby, where we celebrate our champions, where Dumas, the winner of the 1999 performer category, is coming this year to celebrate his quarter century of success at the Public Market, but today, we are largely presenting French-speaking artists who are still unknown or little-known and who we believe are destined for great careers.”
Granby, Francophile center
The challenge of French-language songs is great. Disproportionately so. The niche market of listening platforms in the digital century, the disaffection of commercial radio stations, the dwindling media exposure, Granby’s bet is on this scale. How to do it? By doing everything, all the time, answers the general manager. “Granby is French-language music, that’s our motto. We want it to be heard, and not just on stage. We systematically send music lists to restaurants. The loudspeakers play them on the main street from morning to night. Even at the Granby zoo, local songs are in the spotlight. You can stick your head in big boxes illustrating musical animals whose speech bubbles quote Quebec songs. It’s a matter of pleasure and willpower.”
For a long time, there was the competition and nothing else. At best, the spectators of the semi-finals met in a few bars near the Palace. Professional meetings were added, for recruiters from record companies and visitors from abroad. And then, to minimally register in the series of summer festivals, a large marquee was erected, again and again in the vicinity of the Palace. However, it took the arrival of a new generation to think of the city differently. From the popular Ben la bédaine canteen to the chic Marché public, the limits of song-based sustenance were pushed back, under the banner of an inclusive and festive FICG. “In the collective imagination, these are two places that symbolize Granby: you can treat yourself to — in French! — all kinds of music.”
Fabienne, second of the name
HYL in Bromont, the 24 semi-finalists at the Central for a musical chair of “imposed songs”, Marco Ema at Ben’s, the Jamais trop tôt evening (at the Palace) for up-and-coming artists aged 14 to 17, the “late evenings” of Cayenne, Bermuda, Princesses and company at Louis’ Pub, a “springboard” stage in the middle of the main one, a morning at the Kool club with Miro Chino and San James, the proposals abound. Even the general public posters of the Marché are impossible to pin down: it ranges from the triplet Érika Zarya, Parazar and Alaclair Ensemble to the double programs Rau_Ze-Philippe Brach and Amay Laoni-Dumas. For Brach and Dumas, we’re talking carte blanche: there will be some great names in addition.
“The culture of French-language music is our most precious resource,” proclaims Julie Mailhot. “We have been cultivating it in Granby for 56 years. I emphasize the number. Can you believe that it was only last year that the competition’s grand prize was named? We are now presenting La Fabienne, in honour of Fabienne Thibeault, winner of the performer section in 1974, the first winner celebrated throughout the French-speaking world.”
La Fabienne. You had to think about it. We looked everywhere, but nowhere did we find a songwriting award that recognizes the contribution of a woman. Neither the Barbara Award nor the Piaf Award. Do they exist? “It took half a century to get there, but we are all extremely happy that the initiative is ours, in Granby.” Who will win La Fabienne in 2024? We will find out on Sunday, August 18 at the Palace.