2026-Les Boréades

Les Boréades de Montreal

Sunday November 15, 2:00pm

MERA Schoolhouse, McDonald's Corners

Tickets available at Tickets Please

Thanks to the generous support of the Ontario Arts Council we are able to offer a $20 discount to those 30 years and under, and if they wish, an additional $20 discount for their guest of any age.

Regular — 31 years & older: $35
Discount Single — 30 years & under: $15
Discount Pair — a patron 30 years & under plus a guest of any age (2 tickets): $30

Francis Colpron

Recorder and traverso player Francis Colpron is recognized as one of the most talented musicians of his generation. During the past three decades, the public, critics, and cultural authorities have acclaimed his abilities to innovate as an artist and performer. In 1991, he founded the ensemble Les Boréades de Montréal, of which he is the artistic director, and which puts on a very successful annual concert series in Montreal, performs in North America and Europe, and records on the ATMA Classique label.

Les Boréades has performed with world-renowned artists such as Hervé Niquet, director of the Concert Spirituel de Paris; Skip Sempé, harpsichordist and director of Capriccio Stravagante; violinists Manfred Kraemer and Adrian Butterfield; harpsichordist Alexander Weimann; conductor Eric Milnes; cornettist William Dongois; recorder player Stefano Bagliano; oboe and conductor Alfredo Bernardini as well as with tenor Charles Daniels, and Canadian singers Matthew White, Karina Gauvin, and Laura Pudwell.

Francis Colpron was associate flutist with Trinity Consort of Portland from 2000 to 2009. He has been a guest soloist with groups such as Apollo’s Fire of Cleveland, the Edmonton Symphony, the National Arts Centre Orchestra, Opera Atelier, Thirteen Strings, the Studio de musique ancienne de Montréal, Les Violons du Roy, the Nova Scotia Orchestra, and L’Harmonie des Saisons. As well as teaching at the Université de Montréal, he is frequently invited to share his experience as a teacher at well known summer music camps such as Amherst in the United States, CAMMAC in Quebec, and Boxwood in Nova Scotia.

His discography consists of more than 40 recordings.

Marie-Laurence Primeau

A versatile artist, Marie-Laurence Primeau is equally at ease on recorder and viola da gamba. The complementarity of these instruments gives a particular dimension to her playing and brought her to work with well-established ensembles such as le Consort des Voix Humaines, les Boréades de Montréal, la Cigale, les Idées Heureuses, and Flûte Alors! She has toured Eastern Canada, the USA, Japan and Mexico, and is a founding member of the baroque dance company Les Jardins chorégraphiques. She has been seen in prestigious festivals and has recorded under the ATMA Classique and Leaf Music labels.

Marie-Laurence teaches in different associations and summer institutes such as the Montreal and Gatineau recorder societies and CAMMAC music center.

Following a path shaped by her passions and what captures her heart, she is also a practitioner of baby thalasso baths and a birthing assistant on a midwifery team in Montreal, dividing her time between music and perinatal care.

Tristan Best

Tristan Best is a viola da gamba player currently based in Montreal, Quebec. Originally a jazz guitarist from Nova Scotia, Tristan moved to Montreal to pursue a B.Mus and M.Mus in viola da gamba performance from McGill University and studied under the tutelage of Betsy MacMillan and Elin Soderstrom. Since the completion of his studies in 2021, Tristan regularly performs around Canada with early music and contemporary groups on viola da gamba. In 2022, he won second place and the founder’s prize in the Mathieu-Duguay Early Music Competition. In 2023, his ensemble Les Barocudas’ album “Basta Parlare!”, was nominated for an Opus Prize and Juno award for Classical Album of the Year (small ensemble). Tristan is also an educator and gives workshops and lectures about the viola da gamba around Canada and the United States.