Saturday evening, at the Maison symphonique, Francis Choinière will conduct The planets by Gustav Holst with the Orchestra and the FILMharmonic choir. This is a new concert by the young 25-year-old conductor, who has already conducted in these places on February 13, March 11 and 18, as well as April 2 and 9.
“Since March 2020, during the pandemic, we have given almost 100 concerts in Quebec, says Francis Choinière. Most of them are small concerts that we toured in Montreal, Gatineau, Sherbrooke and Quebec. But it allowed us to continue to hire artists. “While some have been paralyzed by the pandemic, Francis Choinière has gone ahead, multiplying the projects.
As soon as the restrictions on shows ended, he took over the Maison symphonique with a wide variety of shows: Requiem by Fauré and Requiem for choir and organ of Duruflé, The symphonic universe of cinemaa concert by the vocal trio Trio Lyrico, the Quebec Concerto of Matthew and the New World Symphonythen the coupling of the fantastic symphony and Boleroa concert that led us to take a closer look at this daring musician and entrepreneur.
Two paintings
The young conductor, holder of a master’s degree in orchestral conducting at McGill University with Alexis Hauser, who took master classes with François-Xavier Roth, Yoav Talmi and Colin Metters, was 2018 to 2020, conductor of the Chœur Fernand-Lindsay at the Festival de Lanaudière and, in 2020-2021, assistant conductor of the National Arts Center Orchestra under the direction of Alexander Shelley. He presents himself in the biography released by his artistic agent as “a versatile musician, active as a choirmaster and conductor, concert producer, pianist, and composer”.
In his operations as a chef, Francis Choinière can play on two counts. First on that of the Philharmonic Orchestra and Choir of Music Lovers (OPCM), of which he is the artistic director and conductor and which programmed, for example, the Mathieu / Dvořák concert on April 2. And on that of GFN Productions, of which he is president and co-founder (with his brother Nicolas and Gabriel Felcarek). It is GFN who has joined the services of the very experienced Denis Chabot, specialist in the constitution of orchestras ad hoc and which brings together, over the course of the projects, the FILMharmonic Orchestra which we heard Berlioz and Ravel play on 9 April and which we will hear again on Saturday in The planets. This group includes musicians from the Orchester symphonique de Montréal (OSM), the Orchester Métropolitain (OM) and other Quebec musicians.
“There is no orchestra where you always see the same musicians. With the FILMharmonic Orchestra, we have a regular base of musicians who can be found in almost all productions, says Francis Choinière. I am very honored to work with high quality musicians who have so much experience. And, because they’ve played it all, they’re very excited to discover repertoire. They are therefore very motivated in rehearsal and it is gratifying. Francis Choinière always adds works from the world of cinema to his programs. Music by Hans Zimmer (Interstellar) and John Williams (AND the alien and Star Wars) will be associated with Holst’s famous symphonic suite.
The movie theater
Film music is the basic substrate on which the Choinière building was established. The Lord of the Rings was the opus 1 of his career. Gaining a foothold in the profession of concert accompaniment of cinematographic works is not easy. Hollywood studios, very protective, often favor chefs they have co-opted. “We tackled the biggest existing production in this repertoire. I was a choir director and I wanted my choirs to sing in a production. The Lord of the Rings was one of the most imposing music for it. »
“The first production was the hardest to put together: you had to prove that you “could do it”. That’s why Denis Chabot joined us: we needed this experience. Like Denis, I had been involved in several other productions, for example preparing choirs for Bocelli or Hans Zimmer. These two common experiences helped the duo convince the studios to present films with music by Howard Shore. “For the first concert, I was therefore only choir director”, remembers the conductor.
The project started from there, with a clear analysis: “A lot of orchestras in the world present film music, but the OSM and the OM do very, very little of it, so there was this openness, there three years ago to offer this repertoire, because the two major orchestras did not do it, unlike Toronto and even Quebec, which have film concerts. »
“This opening almost exclusively for us in Montreal allowed us to establish the Orchester FILMharmonique. The novelty brought in 2021 and 2022 is that this orchestra is now formed to “open up the symphonic repertoire, highlight the soundtracks, but also classical music”.
soon after The lord of ringsGFN mounted Star Wars. A new hope, Fantasia and titanicthen “The two towers”, second episode of the Lord of the Rings. It was this spectacular concert at Salle Wilfrid-Pelletier that caught the attention of the To have to on GFN and FILMharmonique. We were March 2, 2020.
A second niche
Fantasia was a trigger: the experience of the classic in the image gave the idea of offering the great classics of the repertoire. The first intrusion into this niche was to be made with the Four Seasons featuring violinist Isabella d’Éloize Perron. “The concert was postponed three times”, recalls Francis Choinière, who had more luck recently and has just chained the New World Symphony with the OPCM, and the Fantastic with the FILMharmonic. We will find this orchestra in The planets Saturday, while the OPCM’s last concert will be devoted to Carmina BuranaMay 28.
This type of programming is common in large urban centres. For example, in Paris, concert societies like Pasdeloup, Colonne or Lamoureux have flourished on the great repertoire and the revelation of young conductors and soloists. Is there, too, a particular niche opening up in Quebec, especially since the major subsidized orchestras, by playing the “inclusion / diversity / representativeness” card, seem to be abandoning the heart of the repertoire? “Well summed up: this is exactly what opens up the space! retorts Francis Choinière. “With the new subsidies, the choice of repertoire to be subsidized is very limited. I have some of these constraints with the OPCM: you have to fit into the slots if you want to have financing. But with the production company GFN, I don’t suffer from that and we really program the best-selling projects, with works that, over time, have proven to attract audiences to concert halls. »
That said, like the experience of an orchestra accompanying a film, the listener cannot compromise on quality for the pleasure of hearing the 40and Symphony of Mozart or the Bolero by Ravel. This is where Denis Chabot’s skill in putting together the orchestra and the pleasure we have had, so far, of following Francis Choinière’s performances come into play. The 25-year-old conductor is not intimidated by the experienced musicians in front of him: “I’m not a conductor who controls everything. I leave space for musicality. I worked six or seven times during the pandemic with Jean-Sébastien Roy, an exceptional concertmaster who brings the group together. Everyone has ideas and I have so much joy, so much passion, that I feel very comfortable from the first rehearsal, that I direct the Bolero or film music. »
The OPCM and GFN Productions have already reserved their dates at the Maison symphonique for the next seasons. “Two film-concerts next year and two or three symphony concerts. It’s not a big season: you need a little space and give everyone the opportunity to recharge their batteries,” says Francis Choinière. We bet that other projects will arise along the way.