Caroline Louis, general manager, and Olivier Godin, artistic director, are the only masters on board the Bourgie Hall and the “we” now forms a consensus. The programming of their first season, unveiled this week, is marked by a 20% reduction in the offer of concerts and particularly upscale piano and vocal series.
Since the end of the pandemic, all institutions have regretted the lack of predictability, noting that ticket purchases are made increasingly late. For its 2023-2024 season, Bourgie Hall has probably invented a major parade: creating rarity. Imagine: Igor Levit, Vikingur Ólafsson, Bruce Liu or Pierre-Laurent Aimard will be performing in recital in Montreal in a 460-seat hall! We can legitimately predict that there will not be enough for everyone.
Tradition and intimacy
These keyboard stars are part of an “Exceptional Pianists” series, which will also feature Charles Richard-Hamelin and Eric Lu as a duo and will open with Isata Kanneh-Mason. So is this a new reality that even stars cannot fill the Maison symphonique, is it patron Pierre Bourgie’s wish to have some of his favorite artists in his hall for him, or is this a way of attracting attention ?
“The idea of the great pianists comes from the fact that there is a great piano tradition in Montreal and it was also a wish of these artists to perform in a smaller room, with privacy. Bourgie Hall’s reputation is starting to spread quite a bit in Europe. There are even agents who now speak of a “legendary venue in Montreal”, rejoices Olivier Godin. “It’s been its merry way. Artists want this proximity for a recital. First-class artists in an intimate setting, this is an offer that does not exist very much and it is something that we would like to develop also with the vocal art series”, concludes the artistic director.
Pierre Bourgie gave free rein to his new team: “He gave us carte blanche for the programming; obviously, it was presented to him before making it official. For Caroline Louis, such posters “draw attention to the room and enrich the credibility of the room in the eyes of the music industry”. “But I support Olivier,” she continues. We saw an opportunity. We want to be complementary to what exists in Montreal. There are orchestras, there is opera. So what does Bourgie Hall embody? We would like to be the top level recital hall in Montreal and Quebec. We have everything you need: the acoustics, the format, the audience base. When we started reaching out to big agencies, big artists, it caught on and there was a lot of interest, with creative and original programs. »
De facto, for the new team it is a “real” first season and not a transition season. “The current season is the last transition season, with all contracts postponed during the pandemic,” said Caroline Louis.
cannibals
The projects open to the new team are as numerous as they are stimulating. In addition to questions concerning a performance hall in general (reception of the public, environment, comfort in the hall, communication), there are post-pandemic issues. What’s wrong ? Why didn’t everyone come back? How to adapt the quantity of the offer? Is there a typical public profile that has left or is consuming less?
“Considering the artists’ schedules and the season’s release dates, the programming was done quickly. We arrived in office last June. The programming carried out during the summer was finalized in the fall. The season reflects our orientations, the areas we want to explore in the coming years. As for market and customer analysis, we made progress during the season. We are in the process of consulting the clientele and still have some time to go before we have an optimal vision of the room’s sales strategy. It’s a big reflection, ”says Caroline Louis.
The new general manager does not want to come forward to give intermediate results, but simply concedes that there is a “profile of people who have left town, are on the outskirts and are reluctant to come back to town on a Tuesday evening for a concert” . “That’s a comment you hear sometimes. It’s worth what it’s worth; it’s qualitative, not quantitative”, says the director who is working on optimization to “ensure that there is no redundancy and that each product offered is at the right time in the season so as not to cannibalize a similar project a few days later”.
“These are things that may have happened this year with project postponements due to COVID. Certain proximities could play against certain concerts. We are doing a lot of foundation work so that the offer makes sense for an audience that follows certain series, for example. The season deploys the series “Early Music”, “Chamber Music”, “Exceptional Pianists”, “Vocal Recital”.
beyond the walls
“Balancing the series” is an expression that comes back to Olivier Godin, in addition to “issues of inclusion and diversity, of course, but also of the musical quality of diversification of the offer. We want programming that reflects today’s society, current social concerns. We wonder what these concerns are. We are still in these reflections.
To compensate for the end of the series of Bach cantatas at the weekend, Olivier Godin is working on a cycle of great Schubert melodies from the 2024-2025 season, which will take us to the bicentenary of the death of the Austrian composer in 2028.
Among the positive points of the first post-pandemic period, Olivier Godin cites the return of a young audience to the theater. “We have $10 youth tickets on concert nights and it works pretty well. It also leads us to question them on what they want to hear, since this is our audience of tomorrow. »
Caroline Louis opens the reflection of the widening of the public to the room in general: “There is really a specialized public which comes to the room Bourgie which one could qualify as goodwill and of which we take good care. This analysis now entails a corollary. “One of our priorities is awareness at the provincial and national level. Because if we are well known to the specialized public, we would like to be better known to Mr. and Mrs. Everyone. »
This recognition can go through the tool of the webcast of the concerts, a major reflection site for the tandem. “Several people have come to see us over the past few months with various proposals. All this represents costs and you have to find the most advantageous model, and how you will finance it. Other halls throughout Quebec are doing great things, like the Palais Montcalm, for example, but it’s true that we are a kind of crossroads. Many Quebec artists come to us. They represent 50% of the programming. So if we could give them more visibility through the webcast, we would be happy. »
Among the models we obviously think of Mezzo and Medici.tv, which are among the interesting proposals. In the eyes of Caroline Louis, it is necessary to push the reflection: “It is radiation in the music industry or with potential tourists, but it affects the basin here a little less. »
At the opposite end of the spectrum, there is the Wigmore Hall model in London, which literally “exports” its hall to the Internet. “We met the director, John Gilhooly”, admits Olivier Godin. “But he has over 500 gigs a year and each gig is several thousand pounds in fees. John Gilhooly has the money to support this project. If we were able to find support to make such a model, it would be wonderful,” analyzes Caroline Louis.