There are institutions that are so deeply rooted in the cultural landscape that we tend to no longer really pay attention to them. This is somewhat the case, unfortunately, with Jeunesses Musicales Canada, which is celebrating its 75th anniversary this year at the same time as the 40th anniversary of the JM Canada Foundation, which is designed to support its mission. As this important season begins, The Duty spoke with the general director, Danièle LeBlanc.
Jeunesses Musicales Canada (JMC) has chosen a perfect ambassador to launch the fall of this anniversary season on September 12. Innu soprano Elisabeth St-Gelais, Prix d’Europe 2023, Révélation Radio-Canada Classique 2023-2024, to whom The Duty dedicated a portrait in September 2023, was chosen as “artist in residence”.
With her colleague Mary Jane Egan, Elisabeth St-Gelais will sing the very endearing Moravian Duets by Dvořák in the Joseph-Rouleau room of the JMC, on Mont-Royal Avenue. “This 75e anniversary highlights what we do, and what we do well. It highlights our history and sets the course for what we want to be in the years to come, through special projects, including this artist residency. It is now in its 4th yeare edition and has gained ground,” Danièle LeBlanc tells us.
Plural music
Elisabeth St-Gelais’ predecessors had access to the JMC hall and a small budget. “Now, the project has a grant, which allows the artist to have an envelope to hire artists and allocate a salary during the fall,” explains the JMC’s general director.
The series entrusted to the rising star of lyrical art also outlines the announcement of the years to come. When Danièle LeBlanc is asked about the mission of the JMC, the director insists on writing “classical music” in the plural. “There is the great Western classical music, but there are also traditions in South America, ancestral Indian, Chinese, Japanese traditions, which are taught at university. […] The mission of Jeunesses Musicales is to raise awareness among young and old of the beauty of this great music through diverse approaches, to ensure the widest possible dissemination and to encourage the emergence of young talents by giving them concert opportunities.
Practical application, part of Elisabeth St-Gelais’ budget will be devoted to a concert “New Music and Indigenous Poetry”, proposed on October 10. The soprano will share the stage with Philippe Brochu-Pelletier, jazz saxophonist, and Julien Sagot, percussionist and member of Karkwa, in improvisations and a creation on the theme ofinnushkueu (Innu woman) inspired by poems by Joséphine Bacon taken from the collection Uiesh (Somewhere).
“We will also open our venue to a jazz combo and will combine world music and jazz in the future. This has always been done, but now we have made it part of our mission,” explains Danièle LeBlanc.
The programming of concerts with young artists, the flagship activity of Jeunesses musicales, born on August 23, 1949 at the instigation of Gilles Lefebvre, who then organized the grouping of existing societies dedicated to the artistic culture of young people, now targets 85% of young audiences.
Mediation
“We offer school outings, the “Musical Escapades,” in our venue. Conversely, we send concerts to schools to meet needs in regions where the cultural offering is less abundant,” recalls Danièle LeBlanc. “What also works are the mediation workshops, workshops aimed at young and old and which talk about the upcoming concert. But it can also be an awareness or craft workshop: how to build a violin, for example.”
This task, which Danièle LeBlanc calls “the mediation component,” has become more and more stimulating over time. “Initially, we sent concerts on tour. In front of school audiences, it was always the same formula. Slightly classic concerts with someone arriving on stage, doing their recital, then leaving the stage. Since the 1970s, the offer developed for young audiences has included dramatized concerts. Since the 2000s, mediation has been developed. The emphasis has been placed on varied activities: creative, awakening, learning activities, scripted concerts.”
The JMC workshops are designed to fit into the school curriculum and teach musical concepts. “If we look at the past, present and future, our great strength remains the network, even if it has diminished over time. Our volunteer centres are very present and involved. In direct contact with local stakeholders, they allow us, for example, to establish agreements with Saguenay or to seek out artists from Nova Scotia, to build around their skills to offer a workshop in the Maritimes Francophonie that will speak to this community.”
Danièle LeBlanc aims to reactivate these mechanisms even more effectively in Ontario. “We need to work with the French-speaking world outside Quebec. In the Prairies, we go through the French-speaking sector. Same thing in Alberta or British Columbia. During the pandemic, we put online a complete digital catalogue with preparatory workshops. It really allowed us to expand across Canada. We discovered a French-speaking network that was hungry for culture.
The JMC can now aim to expand beyond. “We are opening our catalog for young audiences to the world. In February 2026, for the first time, we will present a new young audience program rooted in Haitian reality. Until 2028-2029, we will open up to other types of music. This will encourage us to work with other organizations and export to other places.”
Diffusion
According to the director of the JMC, the school environment is still present, despite the “loss of music teaching”. “The interest is there; educational advisors are pushing into school service centres. There is a healthy curiosity.”
But while youth mediation is booming, one aspect of the JMC’s activity has become more complex to manage: the distribution of young talent in the territory. “Our model was based on volunteer centres. In the 1960s and 1970s, there were about a hundred JMC centres across Canada. With the development of provincial and municipal cultural policies, changes have taken place. There are multidisciplinary venues everywhere, with local artistic directors, whose visions meet the needs of the locality. Our volunteer centres have lost ground and we have to work with the presenters. Our business relationships, as well as the way we sell our concerts, have therefore changed considerably compared to 40 years ago, when our centres bought our concerts.”
Danièle LeBlanc recalls that when Manitoban violinist James Ehnes undertook his first cross-Canada tour under the aegis of the JMC thirty years ago, it was easy to find him 50 concerts “almost exclusively through the centres available at the time.”
Today, the potential for an Ehnes alter ego would be reduced, it is assumed, to about thirty stops. “Cross-country tours remain possible,” assures the director of the JMC. Their scope depends “on the response that the project brings to local artistic and cultural issues.” To make things easier, partnerships have been formed with the Fédération culturelle canadienne-française or with the “Relève” component of the organizations Prairie Debut and Debut Atlantic. “It’s a different job, more demanding, because it has to be a win-win partnership. Our centres are very loyal to us; the presenters have different issues.”
For the general public, in Montreal, the 75th festivitiese JMC anniversary celebrations will continue until May 2025. During the season, a partnership with the Orchestre classique de Montréal will be developed to offer a free concert to 1,000 young people and the gala on May 12, 2025 will feature a benefit concert for the JM Canada Foundation, created on November 16, 1984.