JEAN-MICHEL BLAIS aubades Quartet

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ON SALE Fri March 10 at 10am 

PDX Jazz presents
JEAN-MICHEL BLAIS aubades Quartet
The Old Church Concert Hall

Doors 7:00 pm | Show  8:00 pm | ALL AGES

Members Discount
of $5 per ticket available on Advance Purchase Tickets Only.
Discount not valid on the Day of Show.

Jean-Michel Blais  is a pianist-composer-performer based in Montreal.

In September 2021, Blais released aubades, on which for the first time, he wrote for chamber orchestra, thus moving from a simple pianist to an assumed composer. Thus was born aubades, an album named after the Middle Ages notion of romantic music written for dawn and daybreak, performed by troubadours under the windows of others. With this new record, Jean-Michel Blais has created 11 aubades for 12 musicians, all of which celebrate rebirth, a season in bloom and the expectation of a new day to come.

“Music has this ability to create a time and space and a place where people are able to heal themselves. This album bears a lot of joy and hope. I think I was writing my own medication and self-therapy, writing the joy that I needed at that particular time. I can’t wait to share it with people.”

aubades marks the Montreal-born musician’s transition from pianist to composer, as he writes for an ensemble for the first time in his career. Written during the pandemic and following a breakup, Blais has used his distinctive musical voice to create a defiantly uplifting record with glistening instrumental textures and warm major tonalities.

Having grown up in rural Québec, Blais did not start strumming on the family organ until late, before taking up composition and then piano lessons. He plays at masses, weddings and funerals. Endowed with a natural talent, he entered the music conservatory of Trois-Rivières where he began training as a classical pianist. The constraints of this limit him, while he begins to gravitate around improvisation and experimentation. he therefore left the institution for the trip, thus interrupting his musical career.

He first devoted himself to voluntary work in an orphanage in Guatemala, before going on several occasions to explore the confines of Europe. Back home, it was after training in special education that he worked for five years with disadvantaged and immigrant families in Montreal. Wishing to continue his academic career, he began a bachelor’s degree in liberal arts and psychology, which he completed in Buenos Aires. Meanwhile, he continued his discovery of the old continent, spontaneously moving to Berlin, where he fell in love with the electronic music scene. Based in Montreal since 2010, he rediscovers his love for composition and performance.

Noticed by the Toronto label  Arts & Crafts, Blais launched in 2016 his first opus, il, written after two years of daily improvisation, recorded with a Zoom H4N in his apartment. The album ranks among the top 10 of the best albums of Time Magazine, which underlines that the music “breathes there, invites to take a moment and to recognize that there is still a lot of beauty in the world.” – the album garnered over 50 million streams.

In 2017, he performed at the Red Bull Music Academy in collaboration with grammy-nominated electronic producer CFCF, initiating a partnership between them, this gig spawned Cascades, a collaborative EP receiving rave reviews from BBC Radio 6 and Pitchfork, for which piano and electronics :synchronized to exhilarating effect”.

After a European and North American tour, Blais released his second opus in 2018, Dans Ma Main. Suffering from Tourette’s Syndrome, he is inspired by the ambient and new age music that his parents played to him as a child to alleviate his symptoms. The result is an album tinged with minimalism, sampling and electronics. The album earned a place on the short list of the Polaris Prize, received the Libera Awards for best classical album and was qualified by Radio-Canada as “a spiritual quest, “where each track reveals a different palette of sounds, alternating between tension and relaxation.” Two related EPs result from it, compiling versions sometimes refined, Eviction Sessions, Sometimes Revisited, Dans Ma Main (Remixes).

in 2019, he signed internationally with the London record label Mercury KX (Universal/Decca) and launched Matthias & Maxime, the soundtrack for the eponymous film directed by Xavier Dolan. Acclaimed by critics, Blais received an honorary gold disc from the Cannes Soundtrack Festival, “for the fruit of a work of remarkable quality”, as well as the Iris for best original music.

In September 2021, Blais released aubades, which marks the Montreal born musician’s transition from pianist to composer, as he writes for an ensemble for the first time in his career. Written during the pandemic and following a breakup, Blais has used his distinctive musical voice to create a defiantly uplifting record with glistening instrumental textures and warm major tonalities.