Bio
Trio Sylvain Picard - Airs à faire frire
Guitar, contrabass and drums : a trio that paints luxuriant landscapes. The trio's name was chosen in honor of French composer Éric Satie. Gymnopédie's composer wrote a suite entitlted Pièces froides (cold pieces). In that suite, there is a song called aire à faire fuire (songs to make you flee (or something close to that)). So the group's original compositions and arrangements are influences by the music of the impressionnists and the film music of Danny Elfman, Ennio Morricone and co.
In the jazz tradition, the trio is influenced mainlys by guitarist Bill Frisell, composer/trumpet player Kenny Wheeler, bassist/composer Dave Holland.
Other influences include madness, wisdom, nature, concrete, neighbours who wake us up at 3 in the morning during week nights, hope, white chocolate, dreams, people who teach without knowing it, Kung Fu movies and white tea.
The sum of those influences gives a jazz that melts into ears.
Mathieu Deschenaux
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Daniel «Danger» Gélinas
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Sylvain Picard
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the crowd
The crowd is invited to select a theme/subject on which the trio will improvise a new composition (once in every show).
The trio's performance are ocasions to celebrate madness, wisdom and everything in between.
A jazz that melts into ears.
L'Ensemble Fleur de Lys
Jazz québécois
In Canada, there are two official languages: English and French. While English is spoken in basically every province, French is spoken mainly in Québec. The province of Québec has a beautiful musical tradition that goes back a long way. In the same way Duke Ellington and Count Basie and countless jazz musicians and orchestras celebrated the American Popular Song, Ensemble Fleur de Lys celebrates this French speaking culture by playing original jazz arrangements of the great Québécois popular songs.
In 2004 with the help of a few friends, Sylvain Picard (guitarist/arranger) founded Ensemble Fleur de Lys. At the beginning of 2005 began the first shows. In November of that year, the band was in studio to record an album entitled Le retour aux sources. It was released to a jam packed house in September 2006. It received a few outstanding reviews (one of them being: “Le retour aux sources is one of the best jazz albums that was released in 2006.” Denis Lapierre Radio-Canada (radio-canada is the equivalent of NPR or BBC.)
A tour of eastern Québec is planned for fall of 2010.
To learn more about the show please get in touch our musical director Sylvain Picard
A few inspirations and influences
- Charles Ellison -
trumpet player and professor at Concordia University
- Richard Ring - great human being, guitar player and Ranee Lee's husband
- Andrew Homzy, Marc Villemure, Roddy Ellias, Greg Amirault, Yaron Ross
- Oliver Nelson, Dave Holland, Maria Schneider, Gil Evans, Ravel, Brahms, Debussy, Satie, Ennio Morricone, John Williams, Danny Elfman
- Bill Frisell, Joe Henderson, Steve Jordan, Brian Blade, Kenny Garrett, Joe Pass, Bill Evans
- Normand Guilbault, Bernard Falaise, Pierre Tanguay, Jean Derôme, Damian Nisenson
- Richard Desjardins, Daniel Bélanger, Harmonium, Karkwa, Wilco, Loco Locass, Plume Latraverse
- Gaston Miron
- Sifu Yang Hai (Ba Gua teacher, kind of Kung Fu)
- Taoism, Confucianism, Bouddhism
- Jiddu Krishnamurti, Anthony de Mello, A. S. Neill, Khalil Gibran, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Guy Debord, C. G. Yung
- My students
- Nature
- Silence
