Angèle Dubeau

Dubeau, Angèle

 Dubeau, Angèle. Violinist, b St-Norbert, near Joliette, Que, 24 Mar 1962; premier prix violin (Conservatoire de musique du Québec à Montréal [CMM]) 1976, premier prix chamber music (CMM) 1977. She began studying violin at four in Joliette with Rolland Brunelle. She worked with Jean Cousineau in Montreal before joining the class of Raymond Dessaints at the CMM (1971-7), where she became at 15 the youngest instrumentalist in the entire Conservatoire de musique du Québec network to win a premier prix. She also won the Montreal Symphony Orchestra Concours (1976), the CBC Talent Festival (1979), the Sylva Gelber Prize (1982) awarded by the Canada Council to the most talented young Canadian musician, the Tibor-Varga International Competition, Switzerland (1983), and the Prize of the Americas at the Viña del Mar International Competition, Chile (1985). She received further training at the Juilliard School in New York with Dorothy Delay, and then went to Bucarest to study (1981-4) with Stefan Gheorghiu. She also studied privately with Henryk Szeryng.

She toured 1977-81 with the Jeunesses musicales of Canada (Youth and Music Canada) and represented this organization at the International Society for Music Education convention in Bristol, England, in 1982. She then embarked on an international career which has taken her to the most famous concert halls of the world, in performances with the Brussels, Kiev, Shanghai, Tokyo, Toronto, Montreal, and Quebec City orchestras. She has also played in the USA and in South America, as well as on CBC radio and television. At Expo 86, she premiered François Dompierre's Violin Concerto with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra; the concert was broadcast coast-to-coast on the CBC television programme 'Les Beaux Dimanches.'

In 1987, Angèle Dubeau was invited to be part of the entourage of Jeanne Sauvé, then Governor General of Canada, on her official visit to China and Thailand; on this occasion, she and pianist Andrew Tunis gave several recitals, namely in Beijing, Shanghai, and Bangkok. That same year, she was guest soloist with the McGill Chamber Orchestra on their tour of the Far East, and she was named 'soloist of the year' by the Communauté des radios publiques de langue française. Noel Goodwin described her in The Times (London, 8 Apr 1988) as 'a brilliant violinist... her peformance was distinguished by fieriness of tone, absolute security of pitch... and painting a requisite sense of fantasy and imagination.' Her recording with the Kiev SO brought her a Félix Award in 1990 for classical record of the year. In 1977 Dubeau began to perform on the 'Des Rosiers' Stradivarius' (1733) that had belonged to Arthur LeBlanc.

Dubeau strives to make classical music more accessible to the masses. From 1994 to 1997 she shared her music with larger audiences when she hosted and cowrote Faites vos gammes (Do your scales), a French CBC television program dedicated to showcasing young Québécois classical music talent. Starting in 1995 Dubeau was the artistic director of the annual Music in the Mountains at Tremblant, Que. In 2001 she returned to French CBC television and hosted the weekly show Angèle Dubeau: La fête de la musique.

La Pietà
During 1997 Angèle Dubeau founded La Pietà, a 12-woman ensemble made up of 11 stringed instruments and piano. Dubeau named La Pietà after Venice's Ospedale della Pietà, the 18th-century orphanage where Vivaldi conducted his women's orchestra. La Pietà, like its predecessor, helps a variety of charitable causes. By 2004, Dubeau and La Pietà had performed over 80 concerts in North America, China and Japan.

Recordings
In 2005 Dubeau's discography consisted of more than 20 recordings (seven with La Pietà), all with the Analekta label. Dubeau is one of the only living Canadian classical recording artists to sell 50,000 albums in one year and be certified "gold." (Glenn Gould did so posthumously). In the classical music industry, 50,000 albums represents an extraordinarily high volume of sales.

Other Awards
In 1996 Angèle Dubeau was made a member of the Order of Canada. The same year, the Société Saint-Jean-Baptiste recognized Dubeau's exceptional work in promoting classical music and awarded her their Calixa-Lavallée Prize. She became a Knight of the Ordre National du Québec in 2004. In 2010, Dubeau and La Pietà were nominated for a Juno Award for classical album of the year for Philip Glass: Portrait.

Angèle Dubeau has performed in over 25 countries and is considered one of Canada's most important classical musicians. She is married to Mario Labbé of Analekta Records.

Discography

Fauré - Contant - Champagne. Bartlett piano. 1985. RCI 612. (Champagne) 4-ACM 30

French Sonatas. Fauré - Leclair - Debussy. Tunis piano. 1988. Skylark 8701 and Analekta AN-8701 (CD)

Prokofiev - Tchaikovsky - Kabalevsky. Kiev SO. 1989. Analekta AN-8702 (CD)

Adoration. Borowski - Gounod - Bach and others. Petits chanteurs du Mont-Royal. Patenaude conductor, Laurin organ. 1990. Analekta AN-8704 (CD)

Schubert 3 Sonates. Kuerti piano. 1990. Analekta AN-8703 (CD)

Schubert 3 Sonates. Kuerti piano. 1990. Analekta AN-8703 (CD)

Works for violin and guitar. Piazzolla - De Falla - Paganini. Alvaro Pierri guitar. [1992] Analekta AN 2 8706 (CD)

Works by Alexander Brott. McGill Chamber Orchestra. 1993. Analekta ANC 2 9801 (CD)

Douze fantaisies pour violon sans basse. Telemann. 1993. Analekta AN 2 8708 (CD)

La ronde des berceuses. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy - Gershwin - Gluck - Kreisler - Elgar - Massenet - Foster - Dompierre - Brahms - Paradis. Ensemble Amati. Raymond Dessaints conductor. 1994. Analekta AN 2 8711 (CD)

Opus Québec. Hétu - Champagne - Prévost - Mathieu - Papineau-Couture - Dompierre - Laurin. Baril piano. 1995. Analekta ANC 2 8710 (CD)

Two violin concertos. Mendelssohn-Bartholdy. Orchestre métropolitain. Joseph Rescigno conductor. [1997] Analekta FL 2 3098 (CD)

Il était une fois. Vivaldi - Respighi - Williams, arr. Dompierre - Myers, arr. Dompierre - Bartok - Dompierre - Morricone - Saint-Saens - Chostakovitch - Monti. La Pietà. 2002. Analekta AN 2 8719 (CD)

Passion. Bloch - Bizet - De Sarasate - De Falla - Enescu - Chopin - Gershwin - Foster. La Pietà. 2004. Analekta AN 2 8724 (CD)