• Could you tell us about your background in a few words.

 
My first contacts with the accordion led me to do community-oriented musical creation, so I often played the role of ambassador. I played with jazz and other bands, in clubs and at social-type events, for example.
 
I studied humanities and social sciences: languages, art history, history of Western philosophy at Queen’s University; later I turned to music, studying analysis with István Anhalt, and then musicology at the University of Toronto. For ten years I financed my studies working as a lathe operator, shipper, roofer, landscaper and industrial machine operator. Then I perfected my art privately with the Swiss accordionist Hugo Noth. Finally, I began my career with an important invitation from Serge Garant to perform new works with the SMCQ, in 1986.
 

• What led you to play your instrument?

Some people are born with a violin or goalie pads. For me it was the accordion!
 

• What distinguishes your way of teaching?

My teaching calls on students’ creative originality, introducing them to vulnerability, curiosity and critical thinking. My role is to help them find their way, develop their imagination, their personal vision, and understand the process of artistic creation.
 

• What, in your opinion, are the most important qualities for an accordionist?

For me, the essential qualities for any performer, and not only accordionists, are curiosity, a deep respect for historical contexts, an inexhaustible sense of exploration, and the understanding that doubt is the artist’s companion.

• What are your favorite artists, bands, albums?

I’ve been influenced by different artists, like Nikolaus Harnoncourt (for his recordings of Mozart and Beethoven), Jean Paul Riopelle, Linda Hutcheon, Harold Innes, Jacques Derrida, Alberto Manguel, Thomas de Quincey and Emily Carr. The trumpeter Miles Davis, the conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin and the Cuban singer Ibrahim Ferrer have also been sources of inspiration.
 

• A decisive professional encounter?

I especially loved conducting the rehearsals of the Berlin Woodwind Quintet at the Berliner Philharmonie of Normand Forget’s transcription of Schubert’s Winterreise for the Schubert Week in Berlin with the tenor Christoph Prégardien.

• Tell us about concerts that have been especially memorable during your career.

Some concerts have been exceptional moments for me, made possible thanks to the support and cooperation of my colleagues. I’m thinking especially of three events I took part in:
 

• A concert with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, under the direction of conductor Jukka-Pekka Saraste, at which I performed Peter Paul Koprowski’s Accordion Concerto;
• A concert where I was the soloist in composer Omar Daniel’s Murder Ballads, with the NEM (incidentally an organization-in-residence at the Faculty of Music) and Lorraine Vaillancourt, which was broadcast live by Radio-Canada across the country;
• A concert with the SMCQ and Walter Boudreau, where I played Denis Gougeon’s En accordéon at Salle Pierre-Mercure.

 
September 2023