Spring inevitably brings back the waltz of programming unveilings. The next season of the Arte Musica Foundation, the last of its director Isolde Lagacé, who announced her departure after 12 years, is however distinguished as much by its variety as by its quality.
Posted at 6:00 p.m.
The former Erskine and American Church on Sherbrooke Street, today the Bourgie Hall of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, will it ever have been as busy as next year? In any case, it will vibrate almost every other day to the sound of voices and instruments, with more than 160 events, including 122 produced by the Foundation.
“It’s unheard of for me. It’s huge ! “, enthuses Isolde Lagacé, who explains this abundance by the many artists whose arrival has been compromised by the pandemic and that she wanted to play before her departure.
Because the director did not want to impose her wishes on the person who will succeed her in the coming months, wanting to let her “make her mark”. “The ball will be in the court of the person who replaces me,” she assures.
The complete Bach cantatas, undertaken in 2014, one of the director’s flagship projects, will therefore conclude next year with the participation of musicians from the Montreal and Laval symphony orchestras, the Trinity Baroque Orchestra (New York) , of Harpsichord in concert, of Arion, of Caprice, of the Studio of old music of Montreal, of the Harmony of the seasons, of A nocte temporis (Belgium) and of the Metropolitan Orchestra.
Otherwise, Isolde Lagacé continues to have the principle of giving as much space to local and foreign musicians. “I’m not into stardom and I’m not into ‘it has to come from elsewhere for it to be good’”, she says.
PHOTO FROM THE ARTIST’S WEBSITE
Cellist Steven Isserlis will be one of the guest artists for the next season of the Arte Musica Foundation.
Lovers of big names will nevertheless be delighted with the arrival of mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, cellist Steven Isserlis, pianists Alexandre Tharaud, Louis Lortie and Marc-André Hamelin, flautist Emmanuel Pahud, violist Antoine Tamestit and the Tallis Scholars, a list that is by no means exhaustive and which includes both regulars in the hall of the Museum of Fine Arts and newcomers.
The “discovery” aspect remains central to Bourgie Hall, and not just for the artists. “I go to 150 concerts a year and always hear the same Beethoven quartet, the same Beethoven sonata, at some point, it lacks originality, laments Mme Lagace. This is not a value judgment against the great repertoire. But for someone who often goes to the concert, there is nothing as satisfying as discovering a work. »
Thus, alongside Beethoven’s piano sonatas, the complete version of which Louis Lortie will conclude, postponed many times since 2020, great string quartets from the repertoire with the Modigliani, Debussy and others and “standards” of melody and lied by singers such as Philippe Sly, Victoire Bunel and Jana Miller, music lovers are invited to discover many little-known pages of the repertoire with, among others, the medieval music ensemble Diabolus in musica, the New Modern Ensemble, the Orlando Consort , the baroque ensemble Clematis, the Philip Glass Ensemble and the pianist Célimène Daudet.
But will the public be there, after two years of a fluctuating pandemic? “There are a lot of concerts that I schedule for which I know very well that the maximum potential audience is 175 people. I know that won’t even cover the cost of the concert. But I program them anyway, because you need an overview. I can’t hope that each concert will bring in money,” underlines Isolde Lagacé, who estimates that around 30 to 40% of spectators are still missing.
Even if she analyzes everything with a cool head, the director nevertheless has a twinge in her heart in front of these empty places. “When I went to a concert at 13-14 years old, if there was a free seat next to me, I was like, ‘Ah, what a shame, someone might have liked that.’ I think that’s why I ended up doing what I do,” she concludes.