With a new album, string ensemble Les 9 will hit the road with a mini-tour that takes them to Toronto on November 22, followed by Montréal and Québec City.
NOCTURNES is the latest release from the ensemble, which dropped on November 8, 2023. The selections on the digital release are united by a theme of the singular beauty of the nighttime.
Les 9
Montréal’s Les 9 is the brainchild of Vincent Bélanger, who wanted to create his own version of the cello ensembles of Europe. Les 9 is made up of 8 young Canadian cellists and a double bassist.
Their repertoire takes timeless works from the Western classical music canon and reworks them with the ensemble’s specific sonorities. They also blend in modern music and original compositions for a complementary yet unique mix.
Artistic Director Vincent Bélanger is a composer and educator as well as an experienced professional cellist. He studied in France, where he won several awards as a soloist and chamber musician. He’s tackled a wide variety of musical genres from rock to classical in his various projects, and worked as the Artistic Director of a UK-based classical label. He has toured across Canada and in Asia as a musician.
Bélanger founded Les 9 in 2019 to explore the beauty of the lower strings. “The sound of Les 9 is a journey to discover the beauty of harmony in spite of our dissimilarities,” he explains.
NOCTURNES
It’s the third album for Les 9, and the concert tour is the first time the tracks will be performed live.
The music comes from a variety of sources, united by the emotionalism of its effect. Some pieces, like Camille Saint-Saëns’s Le Cygne and Debussy’s Sonate au Clair de lune, are familiar, but singular in their instrumentation.
String harmony is the element that the group uses skilfully to create sonic environments and moods. “We’ve blended ancestral melodies with contemporary sensibilities to create a tapestry of sound that will resonate with every soul in the room,” says Vincent Bélanger.
Arrangements on the album were created by Montréal composers Joey Reda and Francis Choinière. “This team offers a wonderfully innovative fusion of musical and visual ideas, giving birth to NOCTURNE”, explains Bélanger.
The ensemble’s composer-in-residence Christian Thomas also contributed to the album in the form of the track La veuve et la lune, based on a text by poet Michel Tremblay. The track references the composer’s piece Messe solennelle pour une pleine lune d’été, part of an opera which featured soprano Lyne Fortin. Thomas, a long time collaborator with Les 9, adapted the piece for the ensemble.
Tickets and information about the Toronto show on November 22 [HERE]. Information about the other dates, presented by GFN Productions, [HERE].
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