Solo oboe at the Orchester Métropolitain (OM) and the Orchester Symphonique de Laval (OSL), the musician was considered “one of the best oboists in Canada”, according to an OM press release. His death, announced today, sparked strong reactions in the Quebec music community.
“Lise was the soul of the Orchestra. She spread her love of music, the sense of self-sacrifice for music. I believe that she is one of the very rare musicians in the world to have touched so many people, through her playing and her teaching, as well as her way of embodying musical life”, reacted Yanick Nézet-Séguin, artistic director and head of OM.
Isabelle Brien, head of public relations at OM, said that the whole orchestra was distressed this evening: “The news threw everyone to the ground”. Alain Trudel, former artistic director of the OSL, meanwhile wrote on Facebook: “You are leaving us too soon, but you remain in my heart forever”.
Lise Beauchamp became principal oboe at the OM and the OSL in 1993. She had held the same position previously, from 1988, at the Philharmonic Orchestra of Mexico City. Very prolific, she had also been invited by the Violons du Roy, I Musici de Montréal, the McGill Chamber Orchestra (now the Orchester Classique de Montréal) and the Orchester Baroque de Montréal.
The illustrious oboist would also have participated in the recording of “about sixty discs”, according to OM. The website of the Quebec Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Art reports that she has collaborated with Daniel Bélanger and Coeur de pirate, among others.
Not only a musician, but also a teacher, Lise Beauchamp taught at the Montreal Conservatory of Music and at the Faculty of Music of the University of Montreal for nearly 20 years.
It was at the Montreal Conservatory, in 1985, that she obtained her graduate degree and her first prizes in oboe and chamber music. She then completed a master’s degree at the famous Juilliard School of Music in New York in 1990.
In an interview with The duty, in 2019, Lise Beauchamp underlined the passion of the next generation of Quebec musicians in classical music, as well as the contribution of Yannick Nézet-Séguin to OM: “Our students are nourished not only by our playing, not only by the hope to be part of the ball, one day, but also by the richness of what Yannick himself learns and brings. They are communicating vessels”.
Her sister, Danielle Beauchamp, encourages relatives and admirers of Lise to “leave a donation to the Douglas Mental Health University Institute Foundation” to honor her, reports Isabelle Brien.