Passport Series: Mélisande

Get ready to travel around the world – one concert at a time!

The Passport Series takes the same beloved world music that patrons of the Music Haven Concert series have come to cherish and brings it to Proctors in Schenectady and Universal Preservation Hall in Saratoga so the party can continue all year.

Mélisande

Celebrating the tenth anniversary of her électrotrad project, Mélisande revisits songs from her repertoire with a traditional Québécois sound, surrounded by four seasoned musicians. Long-time accomplice Alexandre de Grosbois-Garand (former Genticorum – wooden flute, bass), Jean Desrochers (acoustic guitar), Gabriel Girouard (fiddle, foot stomping) and Éric Breton (percussions) join her to create a high-energy sound with strong vocal harmonies. The multiple award-winning singer selected songs from her four releases to create the album and the show Rembobine (Rewind). These songs were unearthed during repertoire researches in folklorists collections, to excavations in archive centers and then by collecting traditional songs from elders along the Richelieu River. Mélisande (lead vocal, jaw harp, mandolin) cleverly enlivens the songs of the ancestors in a way that invites youth culture to participate in something old made new again. Her rich musical background and her mesmerizing voice give a fresh take on these traditional songs that she adapts and presents with a modern woman’s perspective and delivers with strong personality. Often groovy, sometimes epic, the songs convey the audience to a journey through time and space to discover timeless realities of women’s life. The line-up of Rembobine will allow her to deliver this repertoire with a renewed traditional sound offering a fresh artistic proposal to the folk-world-trad music scene. The success of her four électrotrad albums, hailed by critics from home and abroad, allowed her group to present over 300 performances in Canada, Australia, Europe and the United States. With her infectious energy and engaging stage presence, Mélisande gets the crowd stomping, dancing and singing wherever she goes, she is now ready for new adventures on the folk music scene with her new band.

“A creative fusion of tradition and innovation that honors the past while re-interpreting it for the present. If this is the future of folk, we’re in good hands.”- POP MATTERS