COMPANY PRODUCTIONS CONTACT
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COMPANY : STAFF Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière A recipient of grants from the Quebec Arts Council and Canada Council, Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière holds a Bachelor degree in Music and studied acting (specializing in commedia dell’arte). In 1995, she founded and was the artistic director of Theâtre Lavallière & Jabot. She is resident stage director with Le Nouvel Opera and with Toronto Masque Theater. For over 12 years she has worked as a dancer, choreographer, actress and stage director for many groups : l’Ensemble Arion, Les Voix Humaines, Les idées heureuses, l’Ensemble Caprice, Le studio de Musique Ancienne, Aradia (Toronto) and Toronto Masque Theater. She has been invited to appear at several festivals, including the Boston Early Music Festival (Lully’s Pchysé 2007), the Berkeley Baroque Festival, the Ottawa, Norfolk, adn new-Zeland Chamber Music Festivals, at the Institute for Historical Dance Practice in Belgium, at the International Musique Festival of Lamèque (New Brunswick), for Les Concerts Royaux (Halifax), at Les Fêtes de la Nouvelle France (Québec), for the Renaissance and Baroque Society (Pittsburg). She has stage for the fouth year the closing show of Festival Montréal Baroque : Mozart a Milano (touring in Germany). She ceated two shows for les Jeunesse Musicales of Canada (Barocambolesque and Folies d’Europe).
Following Suzie LeBlanc's Mozart recital in Turin, La Stampa's music critic wrote, "The evening's success is due above all to the young soprano Suzie LeBlanc with her fresh and melodious voice. Her appearance and personality perfectly convey themselves on the opera stage in the roles of German girls, gentle and dreaming, of whom the prototype is Mozart's Pamina… This small masterpiece (Alma grande e nobil core) demands from the singer a bit of aggressiveness… Mrs. LeBlanc's interpretation was perfect in this regard." Acadian-born soprano Suzie LeBlanc lives in Montreal and has spent much of her career specialising in Baroque repertoire. She has worked with many of the world's leading ensembles in concert and opera performances as well as on film and on disc. In the last two years, she has been adding French melodies, lieder and Acadian French songs to her repertoire as well as performing with Helmut Lipsky's ensemble "Au parfum de Tango". In recent seasons, she recorded Mozart's Die Zauberflöte (as Pamina) with La Petite Bande (Bayer records) and Mozart lieder with Yannick Nézet-Seguin (ATMA) and returned to the Brooklyn Academy of Music for Bach's St-Matthew Passion as staged by Jonathan Miller. Her passion for the music of her native Acadia led her to complete a documentary called "Suzie LeBlanc: A Musical Quest" directed by Donald Winkler, and two recording of Acadian songs, La Mer Jolie and Tout passé, on the ATMA label. She can also be seen in the musical films "More than a thousand kisses" (Bach's Coffee Cantata) and "Suzie LeBlanc and a man named Quantz", both for Prometheus Productions. Other recent recordings include Thésée's Lully (CPO), Buxtehude motets with Emma Kirkby, Peter Harvey and the Purcell Symphony (Chandos) and Buxtehude's "Membra Jesu Nostri with Les Voix Baroques. Highlights in 2007/2008 include a recording and recital tours of works by Olivier Messiaen with pianist Robert Koortgard, Bach and Mozart arias with the Victoria Symphony, The Messiah with the Toronto and Detroit Symphony orchestras and Fauré's Requiem with l'Orchestre Métropolitain directed by Yannick Nezet-Seguin. Suzie LeBlanc also plays the lead character in Rodrigue Jean's next film, Lost Song, which will be released in the fall of 2008.
In recent years, Alexander Weimann has emerged as one of the most sought-after ensemble directors, soloists and chamber music partners of his generation. He could be heard at Festivals in Boston, Montréal, Ottawa, Tanglewood, Vancouver, Graz, Salzburg, Vienna, Bremen, Halle, Irsee, Karlsruhe, Schleswig-Holstein, London, Brussels and Utrecht… He is a member of the ensemble Tragicomedia, as well as a frequent guest of Les Boréades, Cantus Cölln, the Freiburger Barockorchester, the Gesualdo-Consort, Tafelmusik and Les Voix Baroques, to name a few, as well as the music director of “Académie Baroque de Montréal”. In the season of 2008, he is going to direct the Portland Baroque Orchestra, as guest conductor, with a series of perfomances of Handel’s Messiah, he will be touring with the Pacific Baroque Orchestra through Canada and the United States, and he will appear as soloist in Bach’s harpsichord concertos with Les Violons du Roy. The Symphonic Orchestras of Québec City as well as Montréal regularly invite Mr. Weimann as a soloist. After assistance work at opera houses in Amsterdam, Basel and Hamburg, he has stepped forward with his own productions: Pergolesi’s La Serva Padrona with the Freiburger Barockorchester, Pepusch’s Beggar’s Opera staged at the Palace Theater of Gotha, Handel’s Orlando Furioso and Stradella’s Moro per Amore for the Teamtheater of Munich, Telemann’s Seliges Erwägen, presented during the European Week held at Passau, the opera pastiche (an operatic parody called) Capriole d’Amore at the 2004 Handel Festival of Halle, in 2005, the Caldara oratorio Clodoveo and in 2006, the event Mozart a Milano, both productionsat festivals in Montréal, Vancouver and Berlin, in 2007 Handel’s Resurrezione, and in 2008 Rameau’s Pygmalion, both for Festival and Early Music Vancouver. He can be heard on about 100 CDs and is often being broadcast by many radio stations worldwide. His albums “Capritio” (harmonia mundi USA) and Handel’s “Gloria” (ATMA) were internationally acclaimed by critics and audience. In May 2005, he started the first comprehensive recording of Alessandro Scarlatti’s keyboard music. Volume 1 got raving reviews and was also nominated for the Opus award 2006 as best canadian early music recording. Volume 2 and 3 will be released in 2008/09. In 2007, he recorded with the Montréal based ensemble Les Voix Baroques, Buxtehude’s “Membra” (Prix Opus and Juno Classic Award Nomination), Caldara’s “Clodoveo”, and recently also, as conductor and fortepiano-soloist, concertos by Wagenseil with the german orchestra Echo du Danube in cooperation with the Deutschlandfunk; in 2008, he will conduct (the rising star New York based male soprano) Michael Maniaci’s debut album with Handel opera arias, as well as continue his series of solo recordings with Bach’s Clavierübung II. Weimann was born in 1965 in Munich where he studied the organ, church music, musicology (M.A. with Distinction on the Recitatives in J.S. Bach’s work), theatre, Medieval Latin and Jazz piano. He was supported by the Bavarian Radio Council, the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and a Cusanuswerk Grant for the Highly Talented. In addition to his studies, he has attended numerous master classes in harpsichord and historical performance practice. To ground himself further in the roots of Western music, he involved himself intensively for some years with Gregorian chant. In 1997, his group “Le Nuove Musiche” won the first prize at the Premio Bonporti in Rovereto. From 1990 to 1995, Weimann taught musical theory, improvisation and jazz at the Munich Musikhochschule. Since 1998, he has been giving master classes in harpsichord and performance for early music at various institutions such as Lunds University in Malmö, the Bremen Musikhochschule but also at North-American universities such as Berkeley (California) and Darthmouth (New-Hampshire), McGill (Quebec), Mount Allyson (New Brunswick) etc; since 2007 he has also been directing the opera productions for the Amherst Early Music Festival, and for the last few years as coach for the singers and instrumentalists at the Université de Montréal, also directing the biannual student’s opera productions, in 2007 Monteverdi’s “Poppea”, as well as giving masterclasses with Montréals opera studio Atélier Lyrique. For the last couple of years, Alexander Weimann, resumed an active interest in Jazz, working on CD projects and a music video for CBC Showcase. After a few years in Berlin, he spends as much time as possible with his family, in his adopted country, in Montréal.
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