Musical Directors
Musical directors of the Montreal Recorder Society are all renowned professional musicians.
Ensemble directors
Élyse Lamanque Girard (Discover the Recorder and Recorder for Fun)
Annette Bauer (Harmonia)
Francis Colpron (La Follia)
Occasional directors
Alphabetical list and profiles
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Annette bauerDirector of Harmonia |
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Annette Bauer is a recorder player and multi-instrumentalist. Born and raised in Germany, she holds a diploma in medieval and Renaissance music from the Schola Cantorum in Basel, Switzerland (2001), and an MA in music from the University of California in Santa Cruz (2004).
From 2001-2012 she called the San Francisco Bay area her home. There, she studied North Indian classical music on sarode, a 24-stringed lute, with her teacher Ali Akbar Khan, and performed and recorded with early music groups all over the United States, including Piffaro, Texas Early Music Project, Magnificat, medieval ensemble Cançonièr, Baroque ensemble Les Graces, and Farallon Recorder Quartet, as well as her own modal crossover project The Lost Mode. From 2012-2020, she spent eight years touring the world as a musician for the Cirque du Soleil show TOTEM.
Since 2020, Annette is now making a new home with her partner and young daughter in Montréal. She is currently sharing her love of music by offering online instruction to students of all ages in her private studio, including an ongoing class on 14th-16th-century notation through Amherst Early Music, as well as teaching workshops for the American Recorder Society. In 2023, Annette became the new director for the recorder workshop of the San Francisco Early Music Society. In 2024, she will also serve as the music director for NAVRS, the North American Virtual Recorder Society.
In Montreal, Annette has collaborated with choreographer Sarah Dell’Ava, and performed with medieval Ensemble Scholastica. In the early spring of 2023, Annette spent six weeks as returning recorder resident at the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology in Oregon, where she composed and improvised music inspired by the visual beauty of nature, and worked on her pipe and tabor, double recorder, and bagpipe skills. The same season, she was also selected to participate in the WestBen performer-composer residency in Ontario. She is also on the roster of ELAN (English Language and Arts Network) as a teaching artist working with students in the Quebec school system.
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FEMKE BERGSMALes Boréades de Montréal
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Originally from the Netherlands, Femke Bergsma established herself in Montreal after her studies in recorder playing at the Conservatory of Utrecht. She works as an assistant to the recorder maker Jean-Luc Boudreau and performs with numerous ensembles, especially Les Boréades de Montréal but also Clavecin en concert, Les Idées heureuses, Les Violons du Roy, Thirteen Strings from Ottawa and Tafelmusik from Toronto. Her interest in medieval music has led her to participate in activities with the ensemble Stadaconé in Quebec and the ensembles Scholastica, Estavel and Alkemia in Montreal. Founder of ensemble Eya with Liette Remon, she is part of the Administrative Council of the Reverdies de Montréal (an organization devoted to the promotion of medieval music). She took part in the creation of Glouglou du Théâtre de Quartier, a theatre show for young children. She teaches at CAMMAC music camp, among others.
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FRANCIS COLPRONLes Boréades de MontréalDirector of La Follia |
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Francis Colpron, a recorder and traverso player, has become recognized over the past few years as one of the most talented instrumentalists of his generation. His qualities and his capacity to innovate both in the artistic and interpretative spheres have been acclaimed by the public, the critics, and the cultural authorities alike. In 1991, he founded his own ensemble, of which he is the artistic director: Les Boréades de Montréal, which runs a successful series in Montreal, tours in North America and Europe, and records many CDs on the ATMA label. He was associated flautist of the Portland Trinity Consort from 2000 to 2009 and he is also a regular guest of other ensembles such as Apollo’s Fire, the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Tafelmusik, Opera Atelier, Les Violons du Roy, the Nova Scotia Orchestra and l’Harmonie des Saisons. Besides teaching at the Université de Montréal, he is a regular guest of prestigious summer music camps such as Amherst in the United States as well as CAMMAC in Quebec and Boxwood in Nova-Scotia.
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Jérémie De Pierre |
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Naturally endowed with a love for the arts, a dramatic sensibility, and a taste for the baroque aesthetic,Jérémie de Pierre is fiercely devoted to discovering repertoire, both popular and forgotten, of the XVIth, XVIIth, and XVIIIth centuries. Beyond his role as artistic director of Les Méandres, Jérémie has performed with Ensemble Caprice, La Compagnie Baroque du Mont-Royal, at the Boston Early Music Festival, with the McGill Baroque Orchestra, the studio of UdeM, at the Montréal Baroque Festival and during masterclasses with Cléa Galhano, Hervé Niquet, Barthold Kuijken or Alexis Kossenko. A passionate researcher, Jérémie edits and transcribes numerous parts from the repertoire, always striving to bring honour to his instrument: the recorder.
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Élyse Lamanque GirardDirector of Discover the Recorderand Recorder for Fun |
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Élyse Lamanque Girard offers a balanced and current approach to the recorder. Always in search of a new expression, she interprets the repertoire of ancient and contemporary music in a thoughtful manner, while tinging her playing with a unique personality. In recent years, she has distinguished herself on the international music scene, notably in Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and across Canada. Élyse is also co-founder of Ensemble les Méandres, an ensemble which mainly explores the French repertoire of the 17th and 18th centuries. In addition to her work on stage, she actively teaches at the Jocelyne Laberge Music School, the Vincent-d’Indy Music School and the CAMMAC music center.
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SOPHIE LARIVIÈREEnsemble Caprice |
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« The flutes and recorders of Sophie Larivière were an absolute delight. » New York Times
Sophie Larivière has been a member and co-artistic director of Ensemble Caprice since 1997. In this capacity, she has been instrumental in developing the unique and innovative identity of this ensemble which provides concert goers with an exciting blend of virtuosity and musical expressiveness. As a member of Caprice, she has played in numerous concerts in Canada, the Middle East, Europe and the USA. Among these performance venues, the following are of particular note: The Mediterranean Arts Festival in Tel Aviv, the Lufthansa Festival of Baroque Music in London, the Musikfestspiele Potsdam Sanssouci near Berlin, as well as concerts in Stuttgart, at the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., in Los Angeles, at New York’s Frick Collection and Miller Theater, in Chicago, and at the Boston Early Music Festival. Much appreciated for the flowing, expressive beauty of her playing, Sophie Larivière is regularly invited to perform with many early music ensembles. She has played with Arion Orchestre Baroque, l’Opéra de Montréal, the Studio de Musique ancienne de Montréal, the Theater of Early Music, the New York Rebel ensemble, the Violons du Roi in Quebec City, New York’s Trinity Choir as well as the Concert Spirituel in Paris. She has performed under the baton of noted conductors Bernard Labadie, Christopher Jackson, Julian Armour and Hervé Niquet. Sophie Larivière has taken part in some thirty recording projects for the Analekta, Virgin Classics, Atma Classique, Antes Edition and Interdisc labels. She is a devoted teacher, and for decades has been transmitting her passion for music to a younger generation of performers as well as to amateur musicians in music camps and workshops. She currently teaches at Cégep St-Laurent in Montreal.
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VINCENT LAUZERVincent Lauzer's Website |
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Named Radio Canada Revelation of 2013-2014 and Discovery of the Year in the Gala of the Opus Prizes in the 2012, Vincent Lauzer is the artistic director of the Lamèque International Festival of Baroque Music in New Brunswick. His CD “Passaggi”, recorded with Mark Edwards, was nominated at the 2014 gala of the ADISQ. Winner of numerous first prizes in national and international competitions, he won the prestigious Fernand-Lindsay career scholarship in 2015, a prize contributed by the Père Lindsay Foundation to a promising young musician for the development of an international career. He also won the 2016 Stanley Richey People’s Choice Prize in the Indianapolis International Baroque Competition, the Tremplin First Prize in the Canadian Music Competition, and the Career Development Award of the Women’s Musical Club of Toronto as well as first prize in the Montreal International Recorder Competition. A versatile interpreter, he performs with Flûte Alors!, Les Songes, Les Violons du Roy, the Pacific Baroque Orchestra, La Bande Montréal Baroque, Les Idées Heureuses, the Arion Baroque Orchestra and La Cigale. He has played in several high-calibre series and festivals in Canada and in the United States as well as in Mexico, France, Germany, Spain and Belgium. Vincent teaches in the musical camp CAMMAC, the Montreal Recorder Society, the Toronto Early Music Players Organization and l’École des Jeunes de l’Université de Montréal.
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MATTHIAS MAUTEEnsemble Caprice |
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Mr. Maute’s compositions hold an important place in the world of contemporary recorder music and are frequently heard in concerts in Europe and North America. They have been published by Amadeus (Switzerland), Carus (Germany), Moeck (Germany), Mieroprint (Germany) and Ascolta (The Netherlands). Miserere, his double concerto for viola, cello and orchestra was premiered in Boston in 2002. Known for his stunning blend of dazzling virtuosity and colorful expressivity, Matthias Maute is recognized as one of the foremost recorder players of his generation, and has earned an international reputation for his formidable talents as a traverso player as well as a composer.
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GILLES PLANTEEnsemble Claude-Gervaise |
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After obtaining Bachelor's Degree in literature and a Master's degree in Medieval Sciences, Gilles Plante leaned towards literature. But the birth of the Ensemble Claude-Gervais, which he has directed since its foundation in 1967, changed his career path: he became a musician, specializing in ancient music with period instruments. He thus leads a double career as a professor and speaker on ancient music and ancient instruments and a performer with the ensembles Claude-Gervaise, Landevan, Vielle-orchestre and Danse Cadence. Gilles Plante took part in the 25th and 50th anniversaries of the Montreal Recorder Society. Since September 2004 Gilles has led our Flûte en Suite group.
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MARIE-LAURENCE PRIMEAUFlûte Alors! |
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| A versatile artist, Marie-Laurence Primeau is an experienced recorder player and is now establishing a solid reputation as a viola da gamba player and baroque dancer. The complementarity of these arts gives a particular dimension to her playing and brought her to work with well-established ensembles such as le Consort des Voix Humaines, Ensemble Masques, les Boréades de Montréal, les Idées Heureuses, les Voix Baroques, le Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal and the Toronto Masque Theatre.
She is a regular member of ensemble Flûte Alors!, Canada’s only professional recorder quartet with whom she toured eastern Canada, France and the USA, and a founding member of the baroque dance company Les Jardins chorégraphiques directed by choreographer and stage director Marie-Nathalie Lacoursière. She has been seen in prestigious festivals in Québec and Canada (Montreal Baroque Festival, Festivals of Orford, Domaine Forget and Îles du Bic, Ottawa Chamber Music, Festival of Ideas, Grand River Baroque Festival), has recorded under ATMA Classique label and is recipient of grant from the Quebec Arts Council. Marie-Laurence teaches in different music schools, associations and summer institutes such as the Montreal Recorder Society, the Toronto Early Music Players Organization (TEMPO) and CAMMAC Music Centre. She has completed a Master's degree in viola da gamba and Early Music Performance at University of Montreal under the direction of Margaret Little.
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alexa raine-wrightAlexa Raine-Wright's Website
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Equally at ease on the traverso and recorder, American/Canadian Alexa Raine-Wright maintains an active Montreal-based performance career. Winner of several national and international competitions, Alexa was awarded the Devonna & Amos Gerber Grand Prize and the Indianapolis Baroque Orchestra Prize at the 2016 Indianapolis International Baroque Competition. She also won First Prize at the 2015 National Flute Association's Baroque Flute Artist Competition in Washington DC, as well as Second Prize at the 2015 Mathieu-Duguay Early Music Competition in New Brunswick. Alexa is a member of the award-winning ensembles Infusion Baroque and Flûte Alors! Alexa has performed with Arion Baroque Orchestra, Ensemble Caprice, Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Clavecin en concert, I Musici, La Bande Montréal Baroque, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. She is a graduate of McGill University.
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CAROLINE TREMBLAYFlûte Alors!
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Caroline Tremblay, a recorder player who is a native of the North Shore, is distinguished by her contagious love of music together with a bubbling intensity and a fluid technique. In 2008, Caroline obtained a Master's degree in musical interpretation at the University of Montreal, including an internship in the Academy of Music and Dance in Jerusalem, Israel. In 2004 she won first prize in her category in the Canadian Music Competition. One can hear her as a soloist in orchestras like I Musici and Les Violons du Roy. One can hear her recordings on the ATMA Classique label. She teaches at the musical centre CAMMAC (Canadian Amateur Musicians-Musiciens amateurs du Canada) and she takes part in the Coopérative des professeurs de musique de Montréal. She was the director of the practice groups Discover the Recorder and Recorder for Fun from 2001 until 2016 and in 2017-2018 she directed the groups Discover the Recorder and Harmonia.
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