It's not me saying that, but François himself. He admitted it at the tribute that was paid to him on Friday evening at the Maison symphonique.
Publicly confessing to having been lazy, undisciplined and rebellious all your life is not embarrassing when you have the music of around sixty films, a musical, 200 songs and dozens of commercial jingles behind you, not to mention 24 preludes for piano and some concerts.
If Dompierre was the bad student he claimed to be, it was because it was not easy for him to choose his path. Since he has a passion for hiking and is curious about regions that regular tourists neglect, he could have made a career as a tour guide. It was also often for small groups of friends. A tireless storyteller and good conversationalist, Dompierre was the focus of hundreds of hours of radio broadcasts. He also loves cooking and spends as much time at the stove as he does at the piano. And while his dishes simmer, he writes. We owe him his biography “History of a Plural Life” and that of Monique Leyrac “The Novel of a Life”.
This all-rounder of our culture turned 80 last year, as did the Quebec Conservatory of Music and Performing Arts. That's why we celebrated these two anniversaries with a big concert. Monique Leroux, president of the conservatory and former executive director of the Mouvement Desjardins (who, during her music studies, was an imitator of the internationally renowned pianist Louis Lortie), opened the evening with a recollection of Dompierre's career and the founding of the conservatory, a unique foundation of its kind , which we owe to the initiative of the composer and conductor Wilfrid Pelletier.
LUCKY COINCIDENCE
On this occasion, conductor Jean-Marie Zeitouni did not choose an easy program for the large orchestra and choir of the conservatory. After Debussy's Nocturnes and before moving on to Prokofiev's suite “Roméo et Juliette” after the break, the orchestra, together with the young pianist Emmanuel Laforest, played almost flawlessly the difficult Piano Concerto No. 1 by the late Jacques Hétu, whose works are not performed often enough . Fortunately, the National Arts Center Orchestra and the Quebec Symphony Orchestra will perform his final concert, Hymne à la liberté, on February 28 in Quebec and in Toronto and Ottawa in March.
At the end, under the eyes of François Dompierre, whom Zeitouni had brought onto the stage, we played Musimage, a suite that takes up several of the themes that he had composed for the cinema. The composer's celebration is not over yet. The highlight is a requiem that he has been working on for months and that the Philharmonic Orchestra and the Chœur des Mélomanes will perform on June 8th at the Maison symphonique and the next day at the Palais Montcalm in Quebec. This Requiem will be in good company as we will also be performing Gabriel Fauré's. Will François like Fauré? After his Requiem he did not stop composing. An example to follow, dear François!
AN ORCHESTRA TOO DISCRETE
The National Jazz Orchestra, founded by Jacques Laurin, performs regularly, but too discreetly, in the Cinquième salle at the Place des Arts. On Saturday evening, the pianist and composer Marianne Trudel presented her Suite Sources with the bassist Étienne Lafrance, the drummer Patrick Graham and the violinists of the Ensemble Eco. This moving work was joined by “Focus” by Stan Getz, performed by the tireless saxophonist Yannick Rieu. A concert worthy of Wilfrid Pelletier Hall.