Singing praises
Grand Ruisseau Song Festival hits high note in Mont-Carmel
The hall was alive in MontCarmel with the sound of music during the recent Grand Ruisseau Song Festival. Edmond Gallant, the president of the organizing committee, says the festival at the Mont-Carmel Parish Hall started eight years ago to prolong the tourism season, as well as promote the music and culture of the region.
“We have summer concerts every Sunday night in July and August, but then after the end of August we found that things sort of fell all of a sudden. People were asking why we don’t have other types of concerts, so that’s why we started the festival.”
The Grand Ruisseau Song Festival kicked off on Sept. 22 with young emerging artists, and continued the following day with the adult singers.
Yolande Painchaud, a professional
opera singer and voice trainer, taught the choral workshops on Sunday afternoon. “This is my sixth time coming and doing workshops for the festival,” said Painchaud, who is originally from the Magdalene Islands. “I studied music in Quebec and then went to Paris
and made a career as an opera singer.”
She continued, “I taught 120 children a big musical that I composed. And I have done a lot of things.”
Chuck Arsenault, a music teacher at the Evangeline School in Abram-Village, was participating in the choral workshop by Painchaud.
“The festival is a great opportunity for me as a music teacher to get some time to spend with great singers in the community. It’s also a great opportunity for my students,” he noted. “Yolande was able to come into my classroom on Thursday and Friday morning and work with some of my students, and also show me a few new songs and that was great to have. Anytime people can get together with music is super.”
The festival concluded Sept. 24 with the participants from the choral workshop performing a four-part folk concert, learned during the workshop.
Other artists that performed included a father and son duo, Jacques and Alex Arsenault, and a group called Deux Gorgees (Allan Gallant, Marcel Caissie, Stephane Bouchard, and Vincent Bouchard).