The Quebec musical community said “goodbye and thank you” on Saturday to Isolde Lagacé, who, as general and artistic director of Bourgie Hall since 2011, has multiplied the opportunities for our musicians, known and less known, to make known their art. It was a vibrant and sincere tribute around very varied musical excerpts.
We feared the overflow, the endless dithyramb and the excess of good feelings. But it was infinitely dignified and restrained, centered around the music, with a few brief words from each other. Lutenist Sylvain Bergeron said that Isolde Lagacé had given “a place, a roof, a soul” to “homeless” musicians, and Andrew Wan underlined what the musical community here owed her. The patron Pierre Bourgie had earlier launched this tribute concert, where the facetious Luc Beauséjour distinguished himself by having the idea of asking ChatGPT to write a fiction about what Isolde Lagacé would do when she retired. Artificial intelligence has embarked on a story of literary reconversion.
Selected works
On the musical side, the afternoon began with a near-miracle, since Charles Richard-Hamelin having had to give up 12 hours of the show for health reasons, Andrew Wan and the Bourgie Hall found pianist Meagan Milatz to play the last two parts of the Sonata from Frank. Anyone with a vague idea of what the 4 ise movement of this sonata for a pianist will know what feat was achieved by this artist from Saskatchewan, holder of a master’s degree from McGill University, who was briefly part of the Fibonacci trio. Bravo and thank you to her.
The tandem Sylvain Bergeron (baroque guitar) and Margaret Little (bass viol) then played Forqueray and Marin Marais, variations on The Madnessthe aptly named for this crazy project.
The proposed works, Prelude, fugue and allegro BWV 998 of Bach for Luc Beauséjour or three movements of “The Emperor” Quartet de Haydn, which recalled the first adventure of the Arte Musica Foundation, born even before the construction of the room itself, had been suggested by Isolde Lagacé. His love for Fire Bird, by Stravinsky, a huge orchestral work, was filled on the piano by the impressive tandem formed by Janelle Fung and Philip Chiu.
The concert also included two very successful surprises. After new artistic director Olivier Godin read a translation of the poem An die Musikhe sat down at the piano, and Marie-Nicole Lemieux came to sing it, in the famous musical adaptation of Schubert.
At the end of the concert, the quartet made up of Axel Strauss, Alicia Choi, Douglas McNabney (husband of the director) and Matt Haimovitz, who had performed Haydn with great concentration, was joined by Luc Beauséjour and several members of the Lagacé family. : brother Éric on double bass, sister Geneviève (Soly), mother, Mireille, and daughter Mélisande McNabney for the 1er movement of Concerto for 4 keyboards by Johann Sebastian Bach. This excellent initiative exhibited at the same time part of the richness of the collection of instruments put together by the Arte Musica Foundation at Bourgie Hall.
Isolde Lagacé, invited to say a few concluding words, was very moved. The page is turned, and with a lot of class.