Bourgie Hall’s programming is marked by two tributes to its general and artistic director, who will be stepping down this season: a surprise concert on January 21 and a “carte blanche concert” this Sunday, September 18 at 2:30 p.m.
As part of this performance by the Ensemble Caprice, Isolde Lagacé has programmed works that have marked her life. “When it’s a tribute concert, we’re in the room, we don’t talk and we receive flowers. There, it will be the opposite: it’s a concert where Matthias Maute kept telling me: “You’re the star, you talk about yourself, the music, your childhood, your memories; you choose the works, we will play them for you.” »
Isolde Lagacé, who will be omnipresent on stage on Sunday, makes a good distinction between the two projects which will mark her departure from Bourgie Hall, which she has managed since 2008, well before its opening in September 2011. “On January 21, I don’t know not what to expect. I don’t know who will play what. There will be baroque music, solo music, chamber music, contemporary music and musicians who will come and speak. I was even asked to stay away from the room in the week before! »
First memories
Bach and organ works were staples of the Sunday menu, but the presence of the Concerto for two trumpets in C major, RV 537 by Vivaldi astonishes. “To tell my life in music, it would take 12 series over three years”, laughs Isolde Lagacé, “so I focused on my early childhood, until the age of 10”.
“The trumpet comes from an anecdote. I was 5 or 6 years old when my parents bought a television. My parents didn’t get up early, so the television on Saturday mornings became our best friend. There was a show called something like University campus, a severe lesson given by a professor in a suit with a stick in front of a blackboard. But the theme of the show was this concerto and I had never heard anything so beautiful. So I listened to the whole show because at the end they played the song again! With hindsight, Isolde Lagacé also finds that the “exuberant and joyful” side of the trumpet corresponded to her personality.
Daughter of Bernard and Mireille Lagacé, little Isolde obviously listened to a lot of music at home. Moreover, his grandfather often asked his son Bernard to play Mozart. “We listened to my father play a sonata by Haydn or Mozart. In addition, I wanted, during this concert, to present our collection of instruments. The choice therefore fell on the 23e Concerto by Mozart, played on the pianoforte by Ilya Poletaev.
The presence of a concerto grosso d’Avison, who was not known at the time, is explained because he recalls the Sonatas of Scarlatti which serve as thematic material: “My mother had me when she was 22 and had my brother at 23. She was preparing for international competitions and worked a lot on Scarlatti’s sonatas. Bach on the organ represents my father; Scarlatti on the harpsichord is my mother. »
The repertoire will necessarily also be that which Caprice, directed by Matthias Maute, can play. To represent at least Isolde Lagacé in music, she admits that we should add The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky and the Quartet with piano of Schuman.