Satie : Morceaux choisis en forme d’hommage

Pascale Giguère has been a member of Les Violons du Roy since 1995. She was co-concertmaster from 2000 to 2013, and has been concertmaster since 2014. She has performed with the ensemble in some of the world’s leading venues, including the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam, Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles, and Carnegie Hall in New York, and at leading festivals in Canada, the United States and Europe. Pascale Giguère has also taken part in recordings with Les Violons for the labels Dorian, Atma and Virgin Classics.

In recent years, Pascale Giguère has appeared as a soloist with Les Violons du Roy, in particular in Mozart’s Violin Concerto No. 5 and Astor Piazzolla’s Four Seasons; the latter work was recorded by Atma and received a Juno award. She has also performed with the Orchestre Métropolitain du Grand Montréal, Orchestre symphonique de Laval and Orchestre des Grands Ballets Canadiens, with which she played Stravinsky’s Concerto in D, an experience she repeated in December 2006 with the Orchestre symphonique de Québec conducted by Yoav Talmi. In recent seasons she has appeared as a guest soloist at the Domaine Forget international festival and the Parry Sound Festival.  

Pascale Giguère studied at the Montréal Conservatory with Raymond Dessaints, obtaining Premier Prix diplomas in violin and chamber music. She has also won several important prizes, including Grand Prize at the CIBC National Music Festival, First Prize at the Orchestre symphonique de Québec competition, and the prestigious Prix d’Europe award in 1993, which allowed her to continue her studies at Boston University with Roman Totenberg, Peter Zazovski and the Muir Quartet.

Pascale was awarded the Canada Council Instrument Bank’s 1700 Bell Giovanni Tononi violin to play from 2006 to 2008. Her current instrument is a Carlo Ferdinando Landolfi violin (Milan, 1745), purchased and generously loaned by Marthe Bourgeois. She also plays a Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù "Lyon & Healy", Cremona, ca. 1738, generously loaned to her by CANIMEX INC. in Drummondville (Quebec).

Canadian violinist Katya Poplyansky is a prizewinner at numerous competitions including the Isabel Bader Centre for the Performing Arts, Tunbridge Wells and Eckhardt-Gramatté competitions, where she was awarded the prize for the best performance of the commissioned work, Carmen Braden’s Foxy Fox’s Musical Games. An accomplished chamber musician, she has been invited to participate in North American and European festivals, including the Toronto Summer Music Festival, IMS Prussia Cove (UK), Festival Jong Talent Schiermonnikoog (Netherlands), Hvide Sande Masterclass (Denmark), and the Smithsonian Haydn Quartet Academy (USA). She has also collaborated with Amici Chamber Ensemble and the ARC Ensemble. She is currently serving as first violin of the Isabel Quartet at Queen’s University as well as concertmaster of the Kingston Symphony Orchestra. In July 2024, she was named co-concertmaster of Les Violons du Roy in Québec City.

Katya Poplyansky is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, the Guildhall School and the Royal Conservatory’s Glenn Gould School, where she was also a Rebanks Fellow. Her teachers include Paul Kantor, Barry Shiffman, David Takeno, Ida Kavafian, Shmuel Ashkenasi, Oleg Pokhanovski, Atis Bankas, Victor Danchenko, Inga Granovskaya, and Joseph Silverstein. She is currently pursuing her Doctorate of Musical Arts at the University of Toronto, studying with Jonathan Crow. Thanks to the generosity of the company Canimex Inc. from Drummondville, Québec, Canada, she is able to perform on a Giuseppe Guarneri “del Gesù” violin, Cremona, ca. 1726-29, “Schroetter”, as well as a Sartory bow and a Dipper baroque bow.

Annie Morrier entered Conservatoire de musique de Chicoutimi at age 5. In 1996, she moved to Quebec City to study under François Paradis. During her studies, she played with Orchestre Réseau des Conservatoires, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and the Jeunesses Musicales World Orchestra, performing in Europe, the U.S., and across Canada. She honed her craft at the Domaine Forget summer academy, studying under renowned teachers such as Gérard Caussé and Bruno Giuranna. In 2001, she performed as a soloist with Orchestre des jeunes du Conservatoire and Orchestre symphonique de Québec. That same year, she graduated from the Conservatory with high distinction.

Annie Morrier has been a member of Orchestre symphonique de Québec, Orchestre symphonique du Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Quatuor Cartier, and contemporary music ensemble Erreur de Type 27. In addition to classical and contemporary music, Annie also performs traditional and Latin American music. Since 2005, she has been a permanent member of the Les Violons du Roy chamber orchestra. In 2015, she joined three other Quebec City area musicians and channeled her lifelong passion for chamber music into the group Quatuor Crema.

At the age of eleven, Jean-Louis Blouin began to concentrate on the viola. From 1989 to 1993 he studied at the Montréal Conservatory, where he obtained a higher education diploma. He then studied with Jutta Puchhammer at the University of Montréal, where he completed a Master’s degree in interpretation.

Since 1996, Jean-Louis Blouin has been a permanent member of Les Violons du Roy and appears in several of the group’s recordings, including J.S. Bach’s Art of Fugue and Psalm 51. His interest in Baroque music and experience with early instruments has also led to performances with other specialized groups, primarily as a violist but also on the Baroque violin.

Audiences have heard him perform with the Tafelmusik and Aradia ensembles from Toronto, at the Lamèque International Baroque Music Festival, and in Quebec with the Montreal Baroque Orchestra; Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal; the Arion, Les Boréades, and La Chamaille ensembles; as well as Masques, with which he produced a recording of Bach concertos for harpsichord on the Analekta label.

Jean-Louis Blouin plays a Giuseppe Pedrazzini viola, Milan ca 1930, and uses a Louis Gillet viola bow, ca 1965, generously provided by CANIMEX INC. of Drummondville (Quebec).

Raphaël Dubé is no stranger to the concert stage— as an orchestra member, chamber musician, or soloist. As a member of the Les Violons du Roy since 2008, he brings the same intensity to the repertoire of all periods and partakes in a wide variety of musical activities. He has been repeatedly hailed by critics and appeared several times as a soloist with Les Violons du Roy, the National Youth Orchestra of Canada, and Montreal Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra. He has twice appeared at New York’s Carnegie Hall as a member of the Amity Players Piano Quartet and has released a recording of Brahms’ piano quartets with that ensemble. He can also be heard with harpist Valérie Milot in a chamber music recording on the Analekta label. Recently he appeared as a chamber musician at festivals in Bic and Sackville.

Raphaël Dubé knew from the first that he was destined to be a musician. His main instructors were Monique and Walter Joachim, Carole Sirois, and Timothy Eddy. Before joining Les Violons du Roy, he spent the 2007–2008 season with the New World Symphony.

Raphaël Dubé plays a cello made by Giovanni Grancino c. 1695–1700, generously provided by Canimex Inc. of Drummondville, Quebec.

Cellist and composer Dominique Beauséjour-Ostiguy stands out on the Canadian scene for his ‘acute sense of discourse, remarkable melodic intuition and expressive power as a performer’ (Frédéric Cardin, PAN M 360), as well as for his compositions, which have been described as ‘very seductive and accessible, but intellectually satisfying for both the layman and the music-loving scholar’ (Frédéric Cardin, PAN M 360).

As a performing cellist, Dominique is the grand prizewinner of the Prix d'Europe 2018, the Prix Choquette-Symcox 2021 and the Peter Mendell Prize 2017. He is ranked among the ‘30 hot Canadian classical musicians under 30’ (CBC Music, 2018). Twice a first-prize winner at the Canadian Music Competition, Dominique performs as soloist with several orchestras, including the Orchestre symphonique de Québec, the Orchestre symphonique de Laval, the Orchestre symphonique de Drummondville, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal, l'Orchestre symphonique de l'Estuaire, l'Orchestre symphonique de Lévis, l'Orchestre Sinfonia de Montréal, l'Orchestre symphonique des jeunes de Montréal, l'Orchestre symphonique de l'Université de Montréal and l'Orchestre symphonique du Conservatoire de musique de Montréal. He has collaborated on several occasions with Les Violons du Roy as principal cellist.

Raphaël McNabney was born into a family of musicians in Montréal in 1982, but only began to play the double bass at the age of 19, after studying the cello between the ages of 7 and 14 with Monique and Walter Joachim and Denis Brott.

After this five-year break, a decisive meeting with Joël Quarrington rekindled his interest in music, this time as a double bass player. He quickly began a career as a chamber musician and soloist, and in June 2007 was appointed as principal bass with Les Violons du Roy.